AI That Actually Helps Small Business

AI. Two letters that either fire you up or fry your brain before lunch.

No hype, no jargon, no promises that a robot will run your biz while you nap. Aly G and Leethal Lee are two accountants actually using AI every week, sharing the real world use cases that save time for biz owners and their teams.

In this ep we unpack what a large language model really is, why it can sound slick and still be completely wrong, and the one habit that changes everything: pause before you start a task and ask whether AI can do the repetitive heavy lifting. From there we split the conversation into two practical lenses, using AI for efficiency (faster admin, less rework) and using it for opportunity (freeing up time for better service, smarter marketing, sharper hiring, and clearer decisions).

We share the easiest entry points we've seen actually work. We get honest about the rise of AI slop, how to keep your tone human, why you must review every output, and how to prompt so AI doesn't just nod along or make things up. Plus data security, why free AI can be a risk for biz info, and why an AI policy is basic governance now, NOT a nice to have.

If you've been AI curious but unsure where to start, this is your roadmap. Subscribe, share it with a fellow biz owner, and leave a review so more people can find the useful bits without the noise.

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Transcript

Hook And Real-World AI

SPEAKER_00 0:00

AI. Two letters that have business owners either fired up or freaking out, sometimes both before lunch. Today we're going to get stuck into the real ways AI is showing up in small biz, the use cases that actually are worth your time, the ones that are pure hype, and a few we've quietly fallen in love with. So no tech bro jargon, just no doom scrolling, just two accountants who use this stuff daily and reckon you should know what's actually useful. Let's go to the theme tune.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

This is one of my favourite topics.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I know it is. This is I'm like, finally, we'll let you talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Uh look, I love a bit of tech, but um I got on the uh artificial intelligence choo-choo train quite some time ago. And I've tried to get everybody else in the team on that same train, and I think I've finally got there.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

I have seen a little bit more take up recently, and I'm like, oh she's finally done it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Oh, look, I've been trying for so long. Um and look, AI has been around for a long,

Large Language Models Explained

SPEAKER_00 1:10

long time. I uh this the concept isn't actually new, but I but I think what happened was uh around 20, oh look, maybe three years ago, ChatGPT blasted out of the gates and it all of a sudden made what is large language models available to everybody. And basically, let me give you a brief description of what that is. A large language model is basically it has a huge volume of data that it's been trained on, it's a pattern-based tool, and so it looks really, really smart. But what it's doing is it's using the the data scraping that it's got, finding the pattern, and just finding the next right word, right? So it's pretty good at a copy and a paste. Um, but it's it's becoming more prolific with the likes of Claude, Gemini, and there's so uh Grok, Microsoft Copilot. There are so many AI tools out there. So, Lee, what's your perspective on the AI choo choo train?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Um, it it scares me a little bit and it makes me feel really old, to be honest. I feel like I'm that person that's maybe a little bit resistant, it's like, no, nope, we can't do that. It it's probably the first time maybe that I've felt like oh, I'm just not ready to get on board yet. Yeah, right. But then I think about it and I think no, I'm actually already using it. Yeah. Like I I do use it I probably more in a just organic way than anything else. But the thought of it really freaks me out a little bit because I'm like, oh, I just I don't have the time to think this through, and I don't oh, it's all overwhelming. I'm being told I have to use it, but where and how and and what, and then I like I said, I I thought about it a bit this morning. I was like, oh no, I actually kind of use it day to day anyway, but mine is just more a bit of an organic use of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

And the way that I look at it is it's like the cloud, you know, in 2010. Everyone was very resistant, it took a lot of, and it's taken a lot of time for people to do that.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, some people still aren't there.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

That's right, and so but the thing about cloud was it was literally that next iteration of the internet, right? So, what made cloud what made um the cloud so good was that you know you're able to integrate and automate. And a lot of AI, people say it's AI, but sometimes it's still actually just the integration and the automation, it's not actually the artificial intelligence around that. But we've had leaps

Resistance, Cloud Lessons, Curiosity

SPEAKER_00 3:30

and bounds, and I would say at the end of last year, when Clawed Code kind of came into the mix, that's when things absolutely exploded. But I don't really want to get into the nitty-gritty of each of the products today. What I really want to do from a small business owner point of view is kind of work through what AI you could possibly work with now that will and there's two ways to think about AI and your business. One, how do I bring efficiencies into my business? And two, how do I be opportunistic and optimistic about what this could potentially leverage for my business, my team, and me?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

So if we look at those components, what are the easy entry points that you've used because you were you were a little bit resistant, most probably still are. Um what are the easy entry points for you that you could give advice to for small business owners on the AI train?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Well, this week, for instance, um I was making a sort of database with Excel manipulating data and co-pilot built into Excel. I can just say, hey, like find this in this sheet and move it over here and reformat this and um add this cell and make it look nicer. And it just does it. Yeah. And that's actually the free version can even do that. I think you have a certain number of requests you can make a day.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

But that like that is just manipulating

Efficiencies Versus Opportunities

SPEAKER_01 4:55

data and making things look pretty. Um and Copilot is really quite good at that in Excel. Yeah. Um it's it's trained quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

It's a native environment.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, right. That's what it's made to do. So I just do that naturally now. Uh if I want, if I don't understand how to do a formula or if I don't understand, because I'm no good with, you know, I'm not the best at VLOOKUPS and all that sort of stuff. Copilot really has replaced the need for a V lookup because it can just do it at you you can be like, hey, there's this sheet, but I want this data re redone in this way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

And it just does it. Amazing. Um quickly. And this is the thing about Microsoft. If you are living in a Microsoft world, Microsoft Copilot is the safest, most secure, and it has access to all your data, like SharePoint, Excel, Word, PowerPoint. So although it might not be as good as, say, a Claude or a ChatGPT, it still has a use case.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Uh in a day-to-day, like I said, because really when we're in Excel and we're just you know banging around. Banging around. You are, you're just pushing, you know, you're putting in rows and columns and read resizing and you're redoing, you're just moving data around to make it in a format you want it

Excel Copilot Quick Wins

SPEAKER_01 6:05

to look like. Easy. Yeah. Copilot can do it better than I can.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

And do you know the other thing? And I know you loved this, and this is why we kind of bought Copilot for the business the search functionality. Oh my word. Yeah, yeah. Like search functionality on Microsoft email, it's a it's a running joke. No, it doesn't work. You put it across Copilot and it's finding stuff that you thought went into the black abyss. Yeah. Like it is popping up stuff that you knew was there, but you just could never locate and find. Yeah. And it actually reads the document documents. So it's uh mind blown.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, it suddenly found things that were lost years ago.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, and so in Copilot, you actually have to add the addition of Copilot, like the paid edition. It's not that much, I could.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

$20 a month, I think it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

But just for those gains alone, yeah. The other thing it does is it can do search, um, sorry, it can um draft emails, not in your tone, it's not great.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

I've experimented with it, yeah, didn't like it because I was using another product for email. Was that fixer? Fixer, yeah, I was like, X E R. Yeah, fixer, and that is amazing, amazing at basically reviews your emails, can draft replies, categorizes it, so it's like, you know, this is a this is a just FYI, this needs a response, this is your waiting for them to respond to you. Um, this is and it had about eight different inbox kind of filters that it would use and it would just file stuff away and it would even start drafting. So if you needed to respond, it would draft the response straight away for you. And it picked up my tone within a day. Yeah. And you can tell it sort of what tone you're looking for, but it picked up my tone within a day, and some of the drafts, but like it actually sounded like you. Yeah, after about a week, I was just pressing send because I was like, this is spot on to what I would have said anyway. Yeah. Um, obviously, being accountant, some of the responses need to be technical. Some of it it gave it a whirl, some of it was wildly wrong. And some of it was bang on.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So such an important point. We can't get to the point where we're not checking the AI. That's our job, right? We need to check what it's doing because it it can go rogue, it can hallucinate hallucinate, it can be wrong. And so there's still value in what we're doing because we are still making sure to review it before it goes, but it can do the heavy lifting, yeah. Like the basic volume.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

But and and like I was getting at the time, I was getting a lot of volume of email. So the fact that it was drafting a response automatically meant it was sitting in my draft box. So I could just go through the draft box and be like, uh oh, yeah, I've got to reply to that. I've got to reply to that. And some of the replies just needed to be, yeah, thanks for that. That's great. Yeah. And so I could just send that. Like that was bang, done. Yeah. Others obviously needed a more in-depth answer, and it would it would start it out um and give it a go, and I could just reword

Email Drafting And Hallucinations

SPEAKER_01 9:05

it. Yeah. But at least it was it was like an assistant, really, like a proper assistant, whereas co-pilot isn't that good.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

No, and look, it'll help you draft it, but it's not it maybe it's really good from a potentially a junior or a junior team member to help draft some things for you. The other thing it does is it summarizes everything is summarized. And I actually think this is a really relevant point because AI can create slop, it loves words, and um what I'm finding is um clients used to email me quick questions, right? And it might used to be a couple of sentences. Now I'm getting really AI, AI drafted slot. And it's like five paragraphs for the two sentences. And so what I'm doing is somebody's obviously generating AI at their end, sending it to me, and I'm having to summarize that AI. And and this is where I think there's still this human element that is so incredibly important, and I'm valuing it more than ever. Like, still have still be you. Don't let the AI take over your personality and and you know, write slop or paragraphs and paragraphs of information. There's still there's still importance in getting to the point being you, summarizing what you're doing. Um, because and that's I think where we're gonna get to, where we're where we're just sending emails slop backwards and forwards.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

And I did laugh at that, and because I know there's certain clients that are using AI to respond to me, and I'm like, my AI is writing to their AI, and this is just an AI conversation at this point.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah, and look, the clear indicators if it's AIs, if things are in bold, if there's like certain sections for each M dashes, if it uses Z rather than S's, and it's very wordy, yeah, right? It's very wordy.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

The other thing that I've come across with the use of AI in email, especially, is uh it has facilitated people complaining a lot more. So people that might not have ordinarily want like complained about something because they they're not strong at giving feedback or writing or whatever, they clearly get onto chat GPD or whatever it is and write these horrifically worded complaint emails and they get very bold in their thing constantly rude. Yeah, and so it has it has encouraged people to be not ruder, I suppose, title. Yeah, more they they love to give more feedback because it's easy to sometimes that feedback is wrong because the AI says, Oh no, you're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Actually wrong encourages that the other thing I'm getting is people giving me advice that AI's given them that are like it's actually wildly wrong. Um because you're giving it, feeding it what you want it to, and it's giving you back the and this is the thing about AI, and I'm gonna teach you a very important lesson. The best thing you can do with your AI is tell it not to lie to you, make it up, or agree with you, agree with you, right? Actually tell your AI that and so actually this leads me into it when when you're using AI, such as a chat GPT or Claude, setting up customizations, setting up your personality profile, setting up projects, like a project for each particular thing that you're doing, will give your AI so much more value rather than just generic slop. And I'll go into maybe some of the stuff in a minute. But what are some of the other things that you're using?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Well, obviously, email drafting, um, even sort of like uh proposals. Um there's AI and tools now. Yeah, some of it's slot, but like proposals if you're needing to draft a proposal just for something that um and the other big one is like policies and procedures. Policies, procedures, processes. For us, we we're required to have a lot of policies and procedures,

Security, Subscriptions, AI Policy

SPEAKER_01 12:40

and it's the easiest way to just draft something up real quick.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

And we initially use ChatGPT. We now I've moved everyone to Claude, and something I want to highlight here is obviously around security and risk. If you are going with a free version, you are the product. Yeah, remember that. Um that's right, it's free for a reason, but your data is going out to the big bad world, and they're using that to scrape the data to train their databases. You must have a paid subscription, and especially if you're using it with team. I've we've now got Clawed, um, the enterprise version. So you need five team members to start with that, but that at least secures some of your data. And Claude has chat, which is secure, co-work, which is not secure just yet, although that's the agentic AI, that is absolutely blown my mind. And then there's code, don't touch that if you don't have the coding background. Cowork is really the place for you because it takes the code back to native data. And and the way that I stealthily got Claude in was I was running a workshop for a council, and um, I had to prep up the workshop, and I'm like, our team, do you want to be my little guinea pigs? And was basically able to get my whole team in a room and get them excited about one, how to customize their their AI, how to use it, and doing use cases. And now they're absolutely going off and and and using it.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, and the more you get confident in it, it's like anything, right? The more you practice and the more you get confident in it, the more you can get out of it. But it's getting your head around that, actually, instead of just going bowling headfirst into whatever you're doing, is to stop and go, hey, can something else do this for me? So it's about also changing your way of doing things and your way of thinking.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

It's a mindset, yeah. And that mindset is curiosity, yeah. But it's also about before you do something, just because you've always done it, think to yourself, can AI do the heavy lifting on this?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

It can do a lot in the back end that's just repetitive, you know, no real value kind of work that you use. Every day that you don't even realise you're doing, that you're just wasting time on.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah. We're gonna stop for a sponsor break and we'll be right back. Running a business without understanding numbers is a bit like colouring your own hair. It works out sometimes, but mostly you need someone who actually knows what they're doing. At all in, we are the proactive award-winning team getting all up in your business from bookkeeping to accounting, tax, and big picture advisory. We don't just keep you out of trouble with the taxmanian devil, we help you grow. Real advice, real people, zero boring accounting vibes. Visit allinadvisory.com.au. Calculator. Okay, so I just want to touch on the policies and procedures because it's important that you have an AI policy and procedure because otherwise people are gonna go out. One, if you don't pay for the version, your team are gonna go out and use it anyway, and your data's gonna be pushed everywhere. You should not put any private and confidential information into any AI tool, right? Um, you need to be able to lock it down, which is in Clawed and Chat GPT, you need to basically say it so it's not going to share it back to um Claude and AI, but you also need a policy on what how you're going to use it. If you're using it, do you communicate that with your clients and contacts? And um, if people are using it, making sure that they are still reviewing and responsible for the work that's being pushed out of that product.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, I think it's really important, and you sort of touched on this, is making sure your staff just aren't using the free one for fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Like you have to be across it, you have to be active.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

You might as well buy them a um a subscription to their pr your preferred provider than just having them experiment with chatty for a little bit and then doing a bit of this on co-pilot and then having a little go at Claude and using whatever free thing they can because they're going like you know, there's they're gonna use it no matter what. They're gonna experiment with it. So you need to control what and how, yeah. Um, and so that comes back to having a policy, but also yeah, just being like, okay, let's not just be a bit tight on this and not pay for it. Let's give them the product. If if they're gonna use it anyway, we might as well use it.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Productivity, it lifts it lifts the value of the work that's being done, and people get excited by it and and how you can basically implement that across every section of your life.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

And I think again, it's like anything, you do have to be I not careful, but obviously staff are going to take it up at different rates, and so you you need to be really careful, I guess, with not being like, right, everyone must do this. No, no, no, no, no. But giving the people that are exploring the freedom to explore, yeah, and and then supporting the people that are a bit more hesitant in ways that they can organically start using it to make themselves feel comfortable with it. Because once you do get used to it, there are like I said, there are just real basic things that you're like, oh, this is great, like I didn't need to do this today.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

And look, I've we've actually got a team member who ethically doesn't want to use it. I'm not gonna shove it down their throat.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, and that's right, like there are things there are back end things with AI around um environmental impact and security, data breach, all that sort of stuff. That yet some people will will not want to do it, and that's that's okay as well. Um we just need to yeah, be be really I I guess considerate and mindful about how and where and and when.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah. And the other things I just want

Content, Transcripts, Mini Employees

SPEAKER_00 18:30

to cover off on it is how I s some of the other products that I'm using. So I use Otter AI, but um, there's um Firefly. I know that Zoom and Teams also have a it's a transcription of a meeting tool. Yeah, and that's pretty common these. Yeah, that's very common these. Look, the transcription isn't so great, but it's what you can do with it after.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Some of them that you've shown me, I'm like, I have no idea what is going on here.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, and so really it's what you can do with it after. So it's is it summarizing? It's the drafting of notes, it's the sharing of information, it's drafting an email to a client. So that's a pretty good one. The other one is content creation. So we obviously do a lot of blogs, I do all the social media, so I use um obviously Claude for that under a project. So I've set up a project which is our marketing manager.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Um, remember when I tried to get AI to make the logo for this show?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

I'm still good at some things and not good at others.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

And I was I was like, yeah, good start, but um, I don't really want guns in it. And so it put more guns in it. Um I don't remember why why we had guns, but we got more and more as I tried to manipulate it, it got worse and worse.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

And look, this is what this is the thing, it can do heavy lifting to about 80%, but sometimes you just gotta get in there and finish the job or just completely say it's not there yet.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

It did give me a couple of like, oh, I like that bit, I like that bit. And then we went to a professional and value in professionals.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

And so, you know, I think the other thing is for the content creation, we've got a brand guide, we've got a copy guide of what we do and don't say. So I upload those in there, I give it a personality and I say go for your life. And it does learn my tone. And so it helps with the social media and the marketing.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

You know, I use Loomly to push out on socials, I use Canvas for some graphics, like and yeah, when I've used I've written some blog posts where I've yeah, I've told it the technical content that I want in it. Yeah, and then I've just said, Hey, refer back to our blogs. Yeah, this is the tone. And it it nails it. Like I have already given it the technical content, and it can just put in the rest and you know, put in the detail and the the over-the-top bit that takes me the time to then write it. It it's great. I can put in notes basically, just brain dump it, yeah, and it it spits it out, and I'm like, Yeah, this is this is pretty good. Yeah, but I have told I'm very specific. Yeah, and you're reviewing it. Yeah, and I'm reviewing it, but I'm like I said, I'm already got the technical content that I want. I'm like, include this, reference that, do this, do this, put it into this tone, make it about like this length, and then I read it and then I'm like, nah, change this, nah, re-order this, nah, do this, do that. Like it's a full-on conversation, yeah, and then it gets to where I'm like, yeah, I'm happy with that.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

And the other thing I use it for is being devil's advocate, bringing diversity in the conversation, challenging my thinking. Yeah, right. So if I'm unsure of something, it's a really great place to go, have a little brain dump, challenge me. Yeah, make me think about this in a different way. And I think all of those things are good. And I mean, other tools that we use in an accounting world, we've got a tax law specific tool because there are specific AI tools that basically tra that basically troll the data of legislation, like it's and they've trained it on that. Like a really powerful Google, yes, absolutely, and you you wow, and you are Google fingers. So you know, and I think that's it is that next iteration, it's just that next jump up, and it's about working out how does it fit into your life, how does it fit into your business, and how do you optimize it um as best you can. But there is so Many tools, and this is there's going to be overwhelm on this, and I think it's just going in testing it. And the other gr the last piece of advice I'll give around AI is if you are going to use it in your business, Claude is the best product at this point in time, and I've tested all of them. I can assure you. If you set up um and personalize it in settings, but also um set up projects, and for your business, you could set up a HR manager, a business advisor, a marketing person. They each have projects. Upload as much content as you can, making sure of privacy and security. Um, but then you've got kind of little mini employees that are a starting point, not the end point. You still need to consult and go to professionals, but it could be a starting point.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah, and like another use case I just thought of is you know, I had to put a job ad up, and Seek has built in AI. So it can write the job ad for you automatically, and it's and it seeks AI, right? So it knows it's traoling other job ads to copy it, which is what I would have done anyway. Yeah, yeah, but AI did it for me. So those kind of starter use cases where if it's really built into what you're doing, just press the button to see what it says.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Whether you like it or not, you you can uh decide later, but just see what it does to give you a start point.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

My final piece of advice is think of it like a really, really um great junior, right? Who can do some heavy lifting on stuff, but gee we've at some times it can be stupid, stupid, stupid. Yeah. So confidently wrong. Confidently wrong. So you're going to have this part where it just blows your mind how amazing it can be, but also on the other end, it blows your mind and how stupid it can be. And so you're living in this realm. Oh, the PTSD. So true, because it is so confidently wrong. And so that's where you've got to be careful, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it, it doesn't mean that you can't find ways that make it effective for you and your business. And I do have a feeling that those people that can harness the power of AI are going to build the efficiencies and productivity. That if you don't, you might be just that little bit behind. Yes. Any final advice, Lee?

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Um, probably just you know, have a dabble, see where you get to to feel like build your confidence, I think. And and start with whatever, like if you're using Microsoft's, just start with Copilot, just to have a go. Um, because you'll be surprised at how organically you can just build small things in day to day that just save time.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yep, love it. Amazing. Well, thanks everyone. It's good to have been speaking to you, and we'll be back with another episode. See you guys. So And

Final Advice And Listener Call

SPEAKER_00 24:55

that's a wrap on today's episode, everyone. Thanks for hanging out with us. We're very aware you could have been scrolling, snacking, or ignoring emails instead. So we appreciate you choosing us. If this episode gave you a light bulb moment, a laugh, or a quiet, oh wow, same, do us a favour and hit follow, leave a review and rate the podcast. It helps other brilliant people find us and makes the algorithm gods very happy. So share it with a mate, a bizbesti, or that friend who's building something big and pretending they're not stressed. Until next time, use bold moves, chase the big wins and lead the way.