The First AI Project Your Business Should Try
“Start small. Learn fast. Stay useful.”
That’s the real playbook for bringing AI into your business.
There’s a lot of noise out there about how to “use AI to 10x your business.” Depending on what corner of the internet you’ve landed in, that might mean automating your operations, reinventing your customer experience, or building a chatbot with all the charm of a DMV form.
But here’s what I tell the business leaders I work with: your first AI project shouldn’t try to change the world. It should help you learn something. It should solve a real problem. And it should build confidence—so that the next project feels even more possible.
Here are three AI projects that check those boxes. You can try them without hiring a team, writing code, or changing your entire workflow. And you’ll learn more from doing than you ever will from just reading LinkedIn posts about “AI strategy.”
1. Use AI to Draft That Document You’ve Been Avoiding
There’s always a document that needs to be written—maybe it’s a new business plan, a scope of work, a hiring policy, or a social media calendar. And it always seems to sit just a little too long on the to-do list.
That’s where ChatGPT or Google Gemini come in.
Try this:
- Pick one real document your team needs.
- Break it into sections—intro, goals, bullet points, examples.
- Give the AI as much context as you can: past work, target audience, internal notes.
- Ask it to help you get a first draft on the page.
What you’ll get might not be perfect—but that’s not the point. The goal is to learn how to collaborate with AI, not just consume it.
Pro tip: You wouldn’t let an intern publish a policy doc without a second set of eyes. Treat AI output the same way—review it carefully, edit it freely, and make it yours.
2. Record Your Meetings—and Actually Use What Gets Said
Most teams spend hours in meetings, then forget half of what was said before the call ends.
Let’s fix that.
Tools like Fireflies.ai or Google Gemini (if you’re already using Google Meet) can transcribe your meetings automatically. That transcript? It’s a goldmine.
Try feeding it into ChatGPT and asking:
- “What were the key themes of this conversation?”
- “Summarize the next steps discussed.”
- “Draft a follow-up email based on this.”
It’s not just a timesaver—it’s a way to turn passive chatter into active progress.
And yes, you still need to check for hallucinations. But over time, your team will get better at asking questions, extracting context, and building real momentum from meetings that used to go nowhere.
3. Automate One Nagging Workflow (Without Writing Code)
This one’s my favorite, because it opens doors.
Every business has at least one process that feels like death by a thousand clicks. Maybe it’s onboarding a new client. Maybe it’s logging service requests. Maybe it’s the back-and-forth of “Did that get sent yet?”
You don’t need to hire a dev team to fix it. You can prototype a solution yourself using tools like AppSmith or Zapier.
Here’s how:
- Map out the steps of the workflow. What’s the trigger? Who touches it? What happens next?
- Use a no-code platform to string those steps together into a form, dashboard, or automation.
- Test it with a small group—yourself, your ops lead, whoever deals with the pain point.
- Refine as you go. Then decide: is it good enough to run, or is it a proof of concept?
If it works, congratulations—you’ve just created your first AI-adjacent app.
Don’t Overthink It—Just Start
AI can feel overwhelming because it’s changing fast. But the fundamentals haven’t changed: understand your problem, explore a tool, and build something small that actually helps.
Start with the tools you already have. Work on a real project. And remember that your job isn’t to master AI overnight—it’s to stay useful, curious, and adaptable as it becomes part of how business gets done.
And if you’ve built a prototype that shows promise—but you need help making it scale?
That’s exactly what we help with at Coexius.
Whether you’re ready to turn a scrappy automation into a real system, or just need a sounding board for how AI fits into your roadmap, we’re here to partner with you.