Written By: Frank Saulsbery
THE LATEST THOUGHTS FROM THE FOUNDER
A running column from Frank Saulsbery. Not a sales pitch, just the way he’d explain it if you pulled up a stool next to him. Meet Frank →
A SNEAK PEEK…
“It can be as simple as saying, use it to help you think faster, not to think for you.”
You’re sitting in a meeting, and someone brings up AI. Maybe one of your team members is already using it, another is asking if they can, and someone else says, “We should just roll this out to everyone, it’ll make us more efficient.”
On the surface, that sounds like a great idea. I’ve had that exact conversation with business owners more than a few times. There’s usually a mix of excitement and a little bit of pressure. Nobody wants to fall behind, especially when it seems like everyone else is moving fast. At the same time, there’s that quiet question in the back of your mind… Are we about to create a bigger problem than we’re solving? That concern is a healthy one.
The reality is, AI is a very powerful tool. It’s getting better every day, and when it’s used correctly, it really can save time and help your team do more. But it’s also one of those tools where the downside isn’t obvious at first. It doesn’t break loudly, it fails quietly.
Here’s what I mean by that. Most AI tools are designed to give you an answer quickly. The challenge is that the answer sounds confident, whether it’s right or wrong. And if someone on your team isn’t trained to question or verify that answer, they may take it at face value. That’s where problems start to show up.
It might look like a quick client response that isn’t quite accurate, or marketing content that sounds polished but includes incorrect information. Or internal research that gets used to make a decision, even though the details weren’t fully right. None of that usually happens on purpose. It happens because someone was trying to move faster and didn’t realize they needed to double check the result.
From a business standpoint, that’s where the risk comes in. If AI is used behind the scenes to help draft ideas, organize thoughts, or speed up research, that can be very helpful. But when it starts being used in client-facing communication, financial decisions, or anything that affects your reputation, the margin for error gets very small.
That’s why I almost never recommend just turning AI loose across the entire company without some structure in place. A better approach is to slow it down just a bit, start by defining where it’s appropriate to use and where it’s not. Make sure your team understands that AI is a tool to assist, not something to blindly trust. Set the expectation that anything important still needs to be reviewed by a human before it goes out the door.
That doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as saying, use it to help you think faster, not to think for you. And to be fair, not every business needs a formal rollout plan with policies and training manuals. If you have a small team and everyone is experienced and cautious, you may be able to take a lighter approach. But if you have employees who are newer, or roles that interact directly with clients, it’s worth putting a few guardrails in place. The goal isn’t to slow people down, it’s to make sure speed doesn’t come at the expense of accuracy or trust.
When you step back and look at it, the question really isn’t should we use AI, most businesses will, in one way or another. The better question is, Where does it make sense, and where do we still want a person fully in control?
If you’re thinking about introducing AI to your team, it might be worth asking yourself. If someone on my staff used AI to answer a client question today, would I be comfortable sending that answer out without reviewing it?
That one question tends to make the right next step pretty clear. If nothing else, take a little time to decide how you want AI used in your business before it decides for you. That alone puts you ahead of most companies trying to figure it out as they go.
That’s how I see it, anyway, and I’d enjoy hearing how you see it. None of this is a sales pitch. It’s just the kind of thing I’d talk through with you if we were sitting across the table. If it raised a question, or you think I have it wrong, I want to hear about it.
My door is always open. Whether you want to talk this through or just say hello, you can reach me anytime.
Network Solutions Unlimited is a generational managed IT services provider based in Decatur, Illinois, serving businesses and nonprofits with genuine support and decades of trusted relationships. Led by Baily Saulsbery and founded by her father Frank, we're not just your IT provider; we're your neighbors who happen to be really good at technology. Contact us today to experience IT support that actually cares.
