Should AI run your business on its own? Here's where we draw the line.

CChristian · Managing Partner, 513 AI

"It depends on the business. If you handle a lot of confidential information, the rules get stricter. But for the everyday stuff, like posting content or running ads, everything should still get at least a quick human look."

"Trust gets earned. An agent gets trained on the business, then tested in a staging environment, then our team and the client give it feedback until it understands how we expect it to handle things. Once it gets there, I trust about 99% of what it writes. I'm not naive enough to say there's never that 1%, even though honestly it makes fewer mistakes than most people do. That's why a person still looks at content before it goes out. We email it to the client, and if they don't reject it within the window we agreed on, say 24 hours, it posts."

"Ad budgets are the easy one. The agent can't change the budget. It's not allowed to, and it won't even do it if we ask it to. On one client account, the AI literally stopped me and made me go change the budget myself. We set it up the same way for clients. And on the off chance a budget ever changes for any reason, our team gets a text and an email right away. It's never going to sit there spending the wrong amount for days."

"Where AI really shines is everything around that. Research, ad copy, spotting what's trending, even photos and video. It's faster and more cost effective than a team of people. We had a fitness client with more than 40 locations, and every market was a little different. AI built the Google Ads plan location by location, added negative keywords on its own, A/B tested the copy and reported every change to our team. In about 14 days the campaign was dialed in at a level that took up to 60 days at an agency I used to work for."

CChristian · Managing Partner, 513 AI

"They're picturing the old chatbots and phone trees. What's out there now is a completely different thing."

"This week I met with a potential client in the medical lab business who was worried an AI receptionist would sound like a robot, like an automated answering service. He'd dealt with ones that couldn't do what he asked, and he'd get frustrated and ask for a human. So I called our demo line on speakerphone right in front of him. He talked to it for about five minutes, and it answered every question he had. Honestly, I think he forgot he was talking to an AI. It almost pitched what we do better than I did. Then I told him, half joking, to ask it for a human. He did, and the work phone sitting on the table in front of him started ringing. He seemed amazed. And that's not a one-off."

"It's the same thing we saw with digital marketing. Owners were nervous about Facebook. They were scared of Yelp because of bad reviews. Some people adopt early and some wait to see what everyone else does. My prediction is that within about two years, something like a smart AI receptionist will be everywhere, and businesses that don't adopt it will become obsolete. Whatever your opinion of AI is, your competitors are going to use it. I'm obviously biased, this is what I do for a living, but that doesn't change what we've seen before with small business and technology."

CChristian · Managing Partner, 513 AI

"It depends on the business, but let's say you already use something like ChatGPT for everyday questions. ChatGPT is great for a lot of things. For quick, simple automations, I'd point people to a basic Claude subscription, and once you get the hang of it, Claude Cowork, which can run tasks for you on a schedule. Everyone has their favorite tools, and that's mine."

"Start with a morning briefing that lands at 7 a.m., Monday through Friday. What's on your calendar, who emailed you, who you need to get back to, and how to prioritize your day. Then build from there. Most owners would be amazed how many things that eat a few hours of their day could just run on their own. Our motto is: if a human can do it on a computer, we can automate it with AI."

"There are more specific tools too. Microsoft's Copilot. Higgsfield if you have a marketing team that wants studio-level ad photos and video for a fraction of the cost. And if you have no idea where to start, it's worth paying for a one-time session with someone who does this every day. It speeds up the learning a lot."

"Everyone asks about return on investment. I can talk about more leads and more revenue all day. But the real return is time. Giving an owner hours back in their day, for their family and for the parts of the business they actually enjoy. That alone drives growth. Time is, and always will be, more valuable than money."