AI Automation
- 8 min read
What are the types of AI (narrow vs general)?
You’ve heard the AI buzz. But what kind of 'intelligence' are we really dealing with? Here’s the difference between Narrow and General AI—and what that means for your business.
Your team’s smart, scrappy, and burned out from wrestling clunky software and duct-taped systems that never quite click together. Meanwhile, your competitors just dropped a LinkedIn post about how they “used AI to double their lead flow” and you’re staring at it thinking… cool story, bro—but how?
You're not alone. Most small marketing teams, MSPs, and SaaS leaders aren't afraid of AI—they're just sick of being sold to every time they try to wrap their heads around it.
This post isn’t about hype. It’s about what’s actually working with AI in small businesses right now—and where the biggest wins are coming in 2025.
AI isn’t coming to your industry. It’s already parked in the lot, sipping a cold one and asking why you’re still copy/pasting lead info from your contact form into your CRM.
In 2025, AI-focused businesses will scale faster, serve customers better, and spend less doing it. The question is no longer “should we use AI?”—it’s “which parts of our workflow can we stop doing manually, like, yesterday?”
Let’s start with the obvious—and often overlooked: daily, repetitive tasks that your team shouldn’t be touching anymore.
Let’s be real: Nobody hires a marketing coordinator to play spreadsheet Jenga for 4 hours a day. Automating this stuff doesn’t replace human work—it frees people up to do better work.
Pro tip: Make sure your tools talk to each other. Plug-and-play is fine, but for real ROI, many businesses need semi-custom automations that match how their teams already work.
If you sell… anything… AI can help speed up, personalize, and scale meaningful customer interactions.
The chatbot market alone is projected to hit $15.5 billion by 2028. Translation: customers expect fast, personalized answers. If your form reply still says "we'll get back to you soon," that’s going to feel… dated.
Want the edge? Build semi-custom flows that talk to your CRM, sales team, and email, so the hand-off from bot to human is seamless—not a black hole.
You don’t need a data science team to act like one. Nearly 48% of businesses already use AI to sift through big messy datasets and find trends humans would miss (or take weeks to spot).
What that means practically:
Generic tools exist—but customized data workflows tied into your stack? Chef’s kiss.
A note of caution: Don’t buy a predictive tool and then ignore what it tells you. If it says your leads from TikTok convert 70% slower than your newsletter subscribers… believe it. And adjust your strategy accordingly.
AI isn’t just for developers and crypto bros. It’s already doing meaningful work in industries like:
The key here: AI isn’t one-size-fits-all. Whether you’re an MSP, IT firm, law office, or DTC brand, the real opportunity is designing AI automations that fit your workflows—not someone else’s playbook.
This isn’t a trend. This is a tidal shift.
If your industry invests smarter, faster, and more sustainably using AI—and you don’t—you’re going to feel that gap in profit margins and team morale real soon.
Translation: You don’t need to throw everything at AI. But you probably need to throw something. Just make sure it ladders back to outcomes that actually matter—like more qualified leads, faster close rates, and fewer “where’d that task go?” moments.
Let’s end by torching a few misconceptions:
Look, AI isn’t perfect. There are governance concerns. Ethical considerations. Misinformation risks. But if you’re running a business and still doing everything by hand? That’s a bigger risk right now.
Here’s what we’re telling our clients at Timebender right now:
We build targeted automation systems for lean businesses who don’t have time to babysit more tools. We make systems that talk to each other. And we map it to actual business problems—not just a wishlist of AI features.
If you’re curious where to start, book a free Workflow Optimization Session. We’ll look at one part of your operation and show you where AI could realistically save you time—not just sound good in a pitch deck.
This doesn’t need to be a tech overhaul. Just a few smart moves to give your business more leverage.
River Braun founder of Timebender, is an AI consultant and systems strategist with 10+ years of experience helping service businesses streamline operations and embrace automation.
Schedule a Timebender Workflow Audit today and get a custom roadmap to run leaner, grow faster, and finally get your weekends back.
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