Hands up who went into business to wrestle with spreadsheets and forms all day? (Accountants, I’m deliberately NOT looking at you!) Most of us prefer to spend our time actually running the business. The admin load is a necessary evil: or at least, it was until now.

Enter AI. It’s surprisingly good at the dull stuff. If you’re not using it yet, I guarantee you’re spending two hours doing a task that could take ten minutes.

Here are 5 of the jobs AI could take off your plate:

1. Cleaning up spreadsheets

Got a spreadsheet that looks like it was designed by a 5 year-old on a sugar high? Inconsistent formatting, duplicate entries, columns that don’t line up properly? AI tools can suggest formulas, reformat data, spot problems and help you bring order to the chaos. Some tools can even build you a simple template from scratch if you describe what you need. 

2. Research

The right AI tool is “Google on steroids” when it comes to research. Most of the LLMs like Perplexity, Claude and ChatGPT have deep research features which can pull together a fully-sourced 15 page report on any subject you choose within mere minutes. Use this feature to check out your competitors’ pricing strategy, or go on an information-gathering mission for a new service. Just remember to check what it gives you: AI can sound confident but be wrong! Always check facts and figures, and verify anything important.

3. Creating strategy and planning documents

Every small business owner has a document lurking in their “to do” folder. Maybe yours is a half-finished marketing strategy or a business development plan that’s run out of steam. You can use AI to generate a solid first draft based on your brief, then refine it with your own knowledge and experience.

4. Template creation

AI is fabulous at understanding and replicating structure. Get it to build your proposal templates, client briefing forms, meeting agenda templates and onboarding checklists. All the things that take a surprisingly long time the first time you create them, and which you then use forever. Describe what you need and let AI build the skeleton. 

5. Automating repetitive tasks with AI browser tools

Ready to get a little bit clever?

Claude’s extension for Chrome (Claude in Chrome) can actually watch what you’re doing in your browser and take over repetitive tasks for you. Think of things like entering data from a spreadsheet into an online form. Copying information from one place and updating records in another. Jobs that are completely mindless but somehow still take 30 minutes of your life.

I’ve got a Google Sheet full of event listings that all used to be entered manually into an online form –  and then the form submission details had to be copied back into the sheet. A perfect loop of tedium! With Claude in Chrome, the whole thing runs automatically, and I use my extra 30 minutes to sit down with a nice cup of tea!

If you do a lot of data entry and form filling, this kind of browser-level automation is worth a bit of time getting set up. It might take longer to complete the task than you would, but it’s taking it off your plate all together, freeing up your time to focus on something more creative or meaningful.

Used well, AI can free up loads of valuable hours for you to spend on business development and marketing, or simply working less.

Want to get hands-on with assistive AI? Get in touch and let us design a bespoke AI Training session for you and your team.