I run a very small business. Here are 21 simple ways AI saves me time every day
Small teams don't have the luxury of wasted motion. Every tool has to pay for itself in time saved and outcomes shipped. Over the last three years, AI has done exactly that for our two-person company.
We produce and sell digital content across multiple brands: software, web, YouTube, e-commerce, music, books, and client strategy. No employees. No agencies. Just disciplined process and AI where it removes friction.
Total AI spend across those years: under $1,000. One sprint month at $200 produced four new software products. Worth it.
Context for product teams
AI is a force multiplier, not a replacement for judgment. If you don't understand the work, AI will slow you down. Especially with code. Treat it like a capable contractor: give it crisp specs, enforce quality, and own the architecture. That's how small teams out-execute bigger ones.
Software products
- 1) Sentiment analysis: Exported uninstall surveys and had AI synthesize the patterns. Clear winners and laggards emerged that we wouldn't have spotted manually.
Tools used: ChatGPT Plus - 2) New product sprints: Used AI to scaffold four production-grade apps in under a week. Weeks of marketing followed, but the build time dropped dramatically.
Tools used: ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT Pro - 3) Technical-to-marketing briefs: Connected the AI to our repo and asked for feature/benefit briefs like a dev handoff to marketing. Those became the product white paper bibles.
Tool used: ChatGPT Pro Deep Research - 4) Marketing video overviews: Fed those briefs into AI to generate narrated product overviews. I appended live demos via screen capture. Fast, clear, and good enough to ship.
Tool used: Google's NotebookLM - 5) Product identity: Iterated new logos and UI accents for the security suite.
Tools used: Midjourney, Photoshop Generative Expand
YouTube and newsletter
- 6) Dynamic masking: Auto-tracking subject isolation for effects without frame-by-frame edits.
Tool used: Final Cut Magnetic Mask - 7) Thumbnail composition: Extend backgrounds to fit text and visual elements without re-shooting.
Tool used: Photoshop Generative Fill - 8) Titles and SEO: Transcribe with Voice Memos, analyze with AI, and narrow to 3-5 punchy options aligned to search intent.
Tools used: Voice Memos, ChatGPT
Downloadable plans, patterns, and tutorials
- 9) Custom micro-tools: Built a simple WordPress plugin to fairly randomize giveaway entries without clumping duplicates.
Tool used: ChatGPT (free tier) - 10) Fast theme art: Generate monthly theme imagery for the shop in minutes instead of hours, with multiple options to choose from.
Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus
Print-on-demand experiments
- 11) Character IP: Ideated character sets, names, and backstories for merch series. Helped with cohesion and product lines.
Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT (free tier) - 12) Realistic mockups: Auto-place designs on human models for storefront images without manual compositing.
Tool used: Placeit
Music production and distribution
No AI in the music creation or mixing. Only in the support work.
- 13) Visuals: Album covers, artist profiles, and supporting graphics at release time.
Tools used: Midjourney, Adobe Photoshop - 14) Promotional copy: Streaming descriptions and short artist bios tailored to each platform's style.
Tool used: ChatGPT (free tier)
Strategy and advice
- 15) Tool testing: I regularly test chatbots, image/video generators, coding copilots, and detectors. You can replicate on a smaller scale by trialing tools against a single use case before you commit.
Tools used: Various free trials
Publishing
- 16) Daily news briefs: Agents track industry updates and summarize highlights for niche sites. Easy to replicate with modern agents pushing to your CMS.
Tools you can use: AI agents like a ChatGPT Agent - 17) Content analysis: Extract topics, entities, and intents from posts and route that data to downstream systems for monetization or personalization.
Tools you can use: NotebookLM for ingestion; Zapier/HubSpot for routing - 18) Affiliate and cross-sell: Match article themes with relevant products and auto-insert modules. Small trickle of revenue, low effort.
Tools you can use: AI agents + Zapier/HubSpot
IT activities
- 19) Vendor research: Offloaded first-pass research on alternative storage options, then summarized into an audio brief to review while working.
Tools used: ChatGPT Pro Agent, Google's NotebookLM - 20) Replace an obsolete component: Took an unmaintained open-source anti-spam tool, had AI document its features, then regenerated a secure, minimal replacement. From brief to production in two hours; six months solid in prod.
Tools used: ChatGPT Deep Research, ChatGPT Codex - 21) Local services setup: Used AI as a Linux co-pilot to configure a self-hosted replacement after Pocket discontinued. Fussy, but much faster.
Tool used: ChatGPT Plus
What to use (and how to buy it)
Start general, then go niche. Chat-first tools get you the quickest wins: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini. Most offer strong free tiers. Upgrade only for a focused sprint or a must-have feature, then downgrade. Treat it like renting a bulldozer for one job, not a forever subscription.
Two links worth bookmarking:
- ChatGPT - great for coding assistance, briefs, analysis, and "give me three options" tasks.
- NotebookLM - strong for ingesting docs, summarizing, and producing briefings.
If you want structured training and tool roundups made for busy builders, these can help:
Time management for tiny teams
Pick one priority per day. Give every active project ten focused minutes, even on busy days. That keeps compounding progress alive without stealing focus from the main goal.
Most weeks, we trade an hour-long task for a few minutes and a $20/month tool. Split across projects, that math wins. We spend less on AI each month than our accounting software. That's the bar: clear time savings that move product forward.
Your move
Where could AI return your time right now? Prototype generation? Market briefs? Video assets? Internal tools? Pick one bottleneck, run a two-week experiment, and measure time saved. Keep what earns its keep. Cut the rest.
If you try a sprint and want feedback, drop your use case and stack in the comments. Happy to compare notes.
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