The four use cases that actually pay back
AI lead qualification and intake (saves 5–15 hours per rep per week). AI-assisted content drafting with human editing (3–5x content velocity). AI customer support triage (handles 60–70% of routine questions). Operations automation with Make/n8n + GPT (cumulative time savings on PDFs, CRM, reporting).
The use cases that waste budget
Fully autonomous content publishing (produces forgettable content that doesn't rank). AI sales SDR cold outreach (deliverability tanks). AI website builders that promise full sites in a click (templated, slow, generic, hard to maintain).
How to pick the right model
GPT-4o/5 for general tasks. Claude for long-form writing and reasoning. Open-source (Llama, Mistral) when data residency or cost matters. Pick per use case, not as a default.
Practical first project
Start with one workflow: usually lead qualification or customer support triage. Ship it in 2–3 weeks, measure the time saved, then expand. Avoid 'AI transformation initiatives' that try to do everything at once.
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