When I started using AI, I used it the way everyone does: as a chat window. Ask a question, get an answer, talk about things I already know. It was pleasant. It was also not what an AI agent is.
The tell was simple. The answers were smart but generic. The moment I gave it actual company work, it fell apart: it didn't know my customers, didn't know my situation, and I had to explain everything from scratch every single time. At some point you think: I'd rather just do it myself.
The problem wasn't the AI. It was me.
A new employee can't work on day one either. You onboard them. Somehow I had expected a machine to skip the onboarding.
So I taught it. Who I am. Which companies I run and what each one sells. How each company is structured, and who does what inside each org chart. Then I told it to go read my calendar and my email. From that point on, it started to hold a real picture of the business. You do have to decide how much to open up. I keep the sensitive things separated. But the principle stands: context first, tasks second.
Then it became a mentor
Two things happened that I didn't expect.
First, with several companies running at once, the threads tangle. The AI that knows all of them untangles the threads for me.
Second (and this is the bigger one), my way of working has calcified over the years. So I started asking the AI, which is smarter than me, how it would do things. And because it has read my actual email, its answers are grounded: "the way you handled this one worked better," or "have you considered doing it this way." That is a mentor. Not a chatbot.
For the price of a few coffees a month, I have the smartest advisor in the world sitting next to me.
This matters most for small companies
A large corporation has a strategy office, staff, advisors. I don't. And that's exactly why AI agents help someone like me more than they help the giants. For ten to eighty dollars a month, a small-business owner can talk to the smartest intelligence available, get counsel on real decisions, and use it to correct how the whole company communicates and works.
If you're starting: three steps
- Write down who you are and what your company does (a few documents) and feed it. This is half the work.
- Connect one thing that repeats daily. Email or calendar, one is enough.
- Don't just assign tasks. Ask for advice. An AI you command is a tool. An AI you consult becomes a counselor.
So, what is AI to you right now? A tool, or an advisor?
