What AI does well, and less well
Today’s AI tools can read a text, summarise it, classify it and write a new one from instructions. In a small business, that covers a lot of everyday tasks.
Tasks that lend themselves to it
- Sorting incoming email: quote request, invoice, complaint, advertising.
- Summarising a long exchange before calling a customer back.
- Preparing a first draft of a quote from a request and your price list.
- Writing follow-ups for unanswered quotes or payment reminders for unpaid invoices.
- Extracting the information from a purchase order or a supplier invoice.
The limits to keep in mind
AI can produce a wrong answer with great confidence. It does not know your customers, your habits or your commitments unless you give them to it. It replaces neither your judgement on a job nor your relationship with a customer. That is why it should prepare, and you should decide.
Another point: an AI tool does not replace clear organisation. If your prices, quote templates or follow-up rules are not written down anywhere, start there. It is often the most useful step, with or without AI.
A four-step method
Choose one task, just one
For a week, note the repetitive tasks that take up your time. Pick one that is frequent, has clear rules and where mistakes are easy to spot. Quote follow-ups are often a good starting point.
Write down your rules
Describe the task as you would to a new employee: when to follow up, in what tone, with what information, what never to write. These rules are what will make the result useful.
Test on fictional data
Before connecting the tool to your real email or your real customers, test it with made-up examples. You see what the tool produces without exposing any personal data.
Start with approval, then measure
Let the tool prepare, and approve every message before it goes. After a few weeks, look at the time actually saved and the corrections you still make. Adjust the rules before extending to another task.
Involve the people who do the work
If you have an assistant, a business partner or employees, involve them from the start. They are the ones who know the special cases, the customers who expect a different tone, the exceptions nobody has ever written down. A tool imposed without them will be worked around; a tool built with them takes away the tasks they like least and leaves them time for the rest.
Your customers’ data: the CNIL’s precautions
As soon as an AI tool handles emails, quotes or customer records, it processes personal data. The CNIL, the French data protection authority, stresses several principles in its recommendations on AI and the GDPR that are useful even for a very small business:
- Define a specific purpose: know why the tool processes the data, which determines which data is useful and how long to keep it.
- Minimise: use only data that is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary; test on fictional data first.
- Inform the people concerned, in simple, clear terms.
- Provide for human intervention when a decision is made automatically, so that it can be reviewed and explained.
- Limit how long data is kept to what the purpose justifies.
Questions to ask your supplier
Where is the data hosted? Which data is sent to the AI tool, and is it reused? Who can access it? How long is it kept? If your business is in Switzerland, also bear in mind the Swiss FADP (nLPD). To go further, our guide to the GDPR, the Swiss FADP and AI covers these checks in detail.
Getting support, or not
For a simple task, a well-configured consumer tool may be enough. When AI has to work inside your tools (email, calendar, quoting software) and follow your rules, support saves time and avoids configuration mistakes.
With us, Aristide, our AI assistant, prepares your emails, quotes and follow-ups in the tools you already use, from €79 excl. VAT per month; nothing goes out without your approval. Hosting is chosen with you, including in Europe, and only the data needed is shared. If you first want to know where AI would be useful in your business, the AI audit costs €790 excl. VAT and is deducted from any project over €3,000 excl. VAT. Your first 30-minute call is free.
Information on the CNIL’s recommendations checked on 4 November 2026 on cnil.fr. This guide gives general pointers and is not legal advice.