01 the business
HVAC and plumbing company
70 staff, two branches
The owner starts each day opening the accounting system, the CRM, the job board and the inbox. By the time the picture is clear, the morning has gone. A stalled job or overdue invoice surfaces days late.
02 before
The problem
Owners start the day by opening five tabs: the accounting system, the CRM, the job board, the inbox and a spreadsheet someone forgot to update. By the time the picture is clear, the morning has gone. A stalled order or an overdue invoice surfaces days late because nobody was looking at that screen.
- Five tabs every morning.
- Problems are spotted days late.
- Managers each see a different slice.
03 the build
What the AI does
- Step 1: Pulls yesterday's figures overnight from your accounting, sales, operations and support systems through read-only connections.
- Step 2: Compares each figure with the same day last week and with your own targets, and marks anything outside the range you set.
- Step 3: Writes a one-page brief in plain sentences: what moved, what is late, what is at risk and who owns it.
- Step 4: Links every line back to the source record so you can check the detail in one click.
- Step 5: Delivers the brief by email or as a Slack or Teams message before your team starts work.
paused: waiting for a person to approve
How it was put together
- Pulled yesterday's figures overnight through read-only connections.
- Compared each figure with last week and with targets.
- Wrote a one-page brief in plain sentences: what moved, what is late, what is at risk and who owns it.
- Linked every line to the source record and delivered it by email and Teams.
04 human in the loop
Where a person stays in charge
You choose which figures appear, what counts as unusual and who receives the brief. The brief only reports; any action it suggests waits for a manager to decide.
- The owner chooses figures, thresholds and recipients.
- The brief only reports; actions wait for a manager.
- Every figure links to its source.
05 rollout
From kickoff to live in 3 weeks
- Week 1Choose ten figures and thresholds; connect systems read-only.
- Week 2Send the brief to the owner only and tune it.
- Week 3Add managers for their own areas.
06 after
What changes
Leaders start the day knowing where things stand without logging in to every system. Problems get raised the morning after they happen, not at month end, and the first meeting of the day is spent deciding rather than hunting for numbers.
Assume the owner spends 40 minutes each morning gathering figures, falling to 5 minutes reading the brief, over 230 working days.
35 minutes × 230 days = 8,050 minutes, or about 134 hours a year of the owner's time.
What to measure
- Time the owner spends gathering numbers.
- Days between a problem appearing and action.
- Overdue jobs and invoices.
- Brief open rate.
07 evidence
What the research says
62% of people said they spend too much time searching for information, 68% lack enough uninterrupted focus time, and 55% said next steps at the end of meetings are unclear.
Microsoft, 2023 Work Trend Index: Will AI fix work? (opens in a new tab) · 2023
Gartner research put the average cost of poor data quality at $12.9 million a year per organisation.
Gartner, Data quality: why it matters and how to achieve it (opens in a new tab) · 2020
08 lessons
Mistakes to avoid
- Too many figures. Ten that matter beat fifty.
- No thresholds. Without them, everything looks equal.
- Write access. Keep connections read-only.
09 questions
Common questions
- Which systems can it read?
- Accounting, CRM, ecommerce, field service and help desk tools, such as Xero, HubSpot, Shopify, ServiceTitan and Zendesk.
- Can it go to WhatsApp?
- Email, Slack and Teams are standard; other channels can be added.