Start with the boring workflow

When people ask me where to start with AI, they’re usually hoping I’ll name something exciting. I almost never do.

Boring is where the hours hide

The flashy projects — a chatbot, a “copilot,” a slick demo — get the attention. But the hours your team actually loses are hiding somewhere dull: re-typing the same data between two systems, triaging a shared inbox, formatting the weekly report, tagging support tickets.

Nobody brags about automating those. That’s exactly why they’re still costing you money.

A quick test

Pick the task that makes someone on your team sigh every time it lands. Ask three questions:

• Does it follow rules more than it needs judgment?
• Does it happen often enough that small savings compound?
• Would nothing catch fire if a draft needed a quick human check?

Three yeses and you’ve probably found your first automation.

Why it works

Boring workflows are predictable, and predictable is exactly what these systems are good at. You get a fast win, your team starts trusting the tools, and you build the muscle for the bigger stuff later — on the back of something that already paid for itself.

Start boring. Boring compounds.