Why Most Businesses Don’t Need AI (yet)

Artificial intelligence is everywhere at the moment.

Every platform has it. Every vendor is talking about it. And most businesses are either experimenting with it, or feeling like they should be.

The expectation is simple.

If we introduce AI into the business, productivity will improve.

But when you actually look inside most organisations, the reality doesn’t match that expectation.

• People are still chasing information
• Processes are still manual
• Workflows still rely heavily on human intervention

And leaders are left asking a very fair question:

Why hasn’t anything really changed?

The Problem Isn’t AI. It’s Where You’re Using It

When businesses start exploring AI, the conversation usually begins in the same place:

“Where can we use AI?”

It sounds logical. But it’s often the wrong starting point because, in many cases, AI isn’t the thing that will solve the problem in the first place. In fact, it’s only like to amplify the problem.

Let’s explain: what we tend to see is AI being layered on top of processes that were never properly designed in the first place. Or they were designed properly, but over time people adapt the processes, add steps, don’t review, don’t test, and don’t communicate. Before you know it, you’re jumping through three hoops when the hoops were never needed in the first place.

To illustrate the point, here’s a short, real story we came across.

One client had a process where sales orders were printed, an invoice number was handwritten, the document was scanned back in, and then emailed to accounts. This was happening dozens of times a day.

When we asked why, the answer was simple: “because finance need it.”

So, we asked finance.

They didn’t.

At some point, a step had been added to the process. No one questioned it. No one reviewed it. And it became part of the way the business operated.

If you take a process like that and layer AI on top of it, you don’t fix the problem. You just make a broken process slightly faster. And that’s why the results feel underwhelming.

We discuss the story of printing sales orders in more detail in our article: how automation stops employees doing low-value work.

The Reason Most Businesses Don’t Need AI (yet)

A lot of this comes down to one simple misunderstanding.

AI and automation are often talked about as if they’re the same thing.

They’re not. They solve completely different problems, and confusing the two is where things start to go wrong. In fact, we covered this topic is detail in: AI vs Automation: The Difference Most Businesses Get Wrong.

Automation is about removing repetitive, predictable work.

If a task follows a clear set of rules and produces the same outcome every time, it can usually be automated. Things like moving data between systems, generating reports, routing approvals, collecting information.

Once that process is defined, the system can run it every time without needing a person involved. It doesn’t get bored or distracted; it doesn’t do it differently on depending on what day it is, or whether it’s 3 degrees or 30 degrees outside. It just works.

AI, however, is different.

AI is useful when something requires interpretation. When there isn’t a fixed answer and context matters. Great examples include: summarising information, analysing data, spotting patterns, generating insights.

That’s where AI adds value. Not by replacing the process, but by adding intelligence to it, and that is precisely why most businesses don’t need AI (yet), first they need automation.

Why Most Businesses Start With AI

AI gets all the attention because it’s the visible part.

It’s the part that feels new. The part that feels impressive. The part people can see working straight away.

So naturally, that’s where businesses focus.

• They enable Copilot
• They introduce ChatGPT
• They encourage teams to “start using AI”, especially in the software that provides it

And to be fair, there is an immediate benefit.

Emails are written quicker, notes summarised faster, information is easier to find. But if you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, very little has actually changed.

The same work is still happening.

• People are still gathering data
• Still moving information between systems
• Still chasing updates from colleagues

They’re just doing it with an assistant now. At best, it’s an incremental improvement, but we’re sorry to say that it is not a transformation.

What should you do instead of starting with AI?

The biggest gains come from removing work altogether, and AI can’t do that alone. Which is often the bit that gets most overlooked.

Take reporting as an example.

A lot of organisations look at AI and think, “great, we can use this to analyse our reports.” And yes, you can, AI is useful for that task. But it’s not where the real value is.

The real value is asking:

Why is someone compiling that report manually in the first place?

Or:

Why are updates being chased across teams?

Why is data being moved between systems by a person?

Whilst using AI to analyse a report is useful, if you still have someone compiling the report, chasing colleagues for bits of data and then duplicating the data from the system to the report, then using AI at the very end of all that is only a small efficiency gain. Look at it this way: you made part of the overall task slightly quicker, but you didn’t remove the biggest time drain.

So, by starting with automation, you can generate these reports instantly with live, current data. No chasing, no moving data, just a clear and up-to-date report. That removes work altogether.

Don’t get caught up in the talk of people looking for jobs that are “AI proof”, because in reality, automation has already changed more jobs than AI ever has.

AI is mostly speeding people up, whilst automation is removing the work entirely. And don’t worry, we’re not saying automation always replaces jobs, but it does often reduce the number of people needed. That’s the thought that needs to sink in.

This is a topic we’ll cover in detail at a later date.

Real World Example, Starting With Automation

We’re very honest here at AAG IT Services, we use automation and AI for several internal processes. We do this with the focus on cutting the friction of day-to-day IT support for our customers. However, there are other areas and departments where automation and AI has proven to be fruitful.

Take our Sales Team for example.

When a new enquiry comes in, before anyone picks up the phone, there’s usually a bit of research involved. Every Sales Team experiences this. You spend time:

• Looking at the company website
• Checking LinkedIn
• Searching for recent news
• Trying to understand who they are

Done properly, that can take two to three hours.

Now, here’s how automation and AI have helped transform that task into 2-3 minutes.

Automation takes the repetitive steps: looking at the company website, LinkedIn, news outlets, etc. And uses AI intelligence to pull all the relevant information, AI can then go one step further and populate this information into something meaningful like a clear one-page report.

The research hasn’t just become faster; it’s disappeared as a task.

Which means instead of spending two hours gathering information, that time can be spent actually speaking to the client.

And that’s why starting with automation is always the first step

What can you do next?

AI is powerful. There’s no question about that. But on its own, it rarely transforms a business.

The real opportunity sits in automation, because once you remove the work that shouldn’t exist in the first place, AI can finally do what it’s meant to do.

Enhance the work that actually matters.

This is something that AAG IT Services can support your business with. Contact our team today and we’ll even show you the report that we automate to gain a better understanding of your organisation.