AI Beyond the Basics: Practical Ways to Use AI

By SBE Council at 6 August, 2026, 10:32 am

By Barbara Weltman –

By now, you know the usual roles that AI can play in your business: customer relations, financial management, marketing, and strategic thinking. But there are many other ways that AI can be used to help you make better decisions and run your business more effectively. Here are some ideas.

Risk Management

If you’re continually seeking ways to minimize risk in your business, you may look at past experience, industry data, or other information. Now, AI can be deployed to look at everything all at once. This can help you identify problems before they arise because AI can discern trends. For example, AI may determine that employees in a warehouse have accidents more frequently during a late shift. The company can address this risk by improving training or changing workflows.

Predictive Maintenance

If your business is dependent on machinery (e.g., you have a factory or are in construction), you may have been scheduling maintenance according to a calendar. AI can better predict equipment failures based on condition, usage, and other factors. Implementing better maintenance scheduling can thwart equipment breakdowns and avoid disruptions.

Legal Assistance

As a lawyer, I’m loath to recommend DIY for creating contracts and other legal documents. Still, small businesses lacking funds to pay attorney’s fees for every little thing cannot continually pay for professional assistance. So, AI can be used to:

● Review contracts. AI can detect inconsistent terms with all of your agreements.

● Identify automatic renewals. You may want this or not. If you do, then AI can help to keep track of the renewals.

● Highlight key terms. Are there unusual indemnification clauses? Should insurance requirements be included?

For safety, after your AI review, you may want an attorney to also look things over, but having used AI first you’ll have a better idea of concerns or questions. This will surely reduce the time required by the attorney to complete a review…and save you money.

Analyze Pricing

With continued inflation, you need to closely monitor your pricing in order to maintain your profit margin. AI can help in this regard by determining:

● Which products could support a higher or lower price

● Which products or services are consistently unprofitable

● Whether products and services should be bundled

Monitor Government Regulations

Small businesses don’t have a legal department to apprise them of changes in federal, state, and local rules. My Idea of the Day® attempts to make small businesses aware of new or changed rules, but I can’t catch everything. The failure to comply with new laws and regulatory changes can be costly. But AI can effectively be your legal department to monitor changes in such matters as:

● Industry regulations

● Licensing requirements

● OSHA rules

● Tax laws

Optimizing Meetings

If your business regularly holds meetings, the days of merely transcribing notes are past. This is so whether meetings are in person or online. Now, AI can improve the effectiveness of having meetings by:

● Identifying decisions that were made

● Noting unresolved matters

● Specifying next steps (e.g., who is responsible for doing what and when)

Final Thought

“AI won’t replace humans, but humans who use AI will replace those who don’t.” — Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (ChatGPT)

This is an exciting time for small businesses because AI can help them think big. They don’t need consultants or expensive professionals as much as pre-AI. At little or no cost, small businesses can use AI to analyze big data and help them make critical decisions, as well as deal with many, many other areas.

For more about AI tools for small businesses, see this list of blogs.

Barbara Weltman is a member of SBE Council’s advisory board, and has been a leading consultant for small businesses of every kind for over twenty years. She is the founder of Big Ideas for Small Business® and has written numerous books on small business operations, including J.K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes, Smooth Failing, and Home Business Magazine’s Home-Based Business Guide. Follow Barbara on Twitter @BigIdeas4SB.