Sales Marketing & Support
Translate a short message into several languages
One person had ChatGPT translate a piece of text into five languages at once.
I run a small business
AI for small businesses
A small business can use AI to draft a customer email, turn rough notes into a checklist, or outline a simple flyer. Check every name, price, and date before it leaves your hands. The tool does not know your customers.
Use AI for the blank page, not for secrets. Do not paste card numbers, passwords, or private customer records. A polite draft is useful. A wrong price or a made-up promise is not.
Read the result out loud. If you would not say it to a customer, change it before you send it.
Use cases
Content & Creative
Design a logo for a project in minutes
In about five minutes, one person made a logo for a project with ChatGPT. The designer they usually hire looked it over and approved it.
Caution. Check that the logo doesn't copy an existing brand.
Work & Operations
Polish emails written in a second language
English emails were a struggle for one native Spanish speaker, so they ran them through ChatGPT before sending.
Money & Bills
Gather invoices for reimbursement
For an expense reimbursement, one person used Claude to round up their cloud service invoices.
Sales Marketing & Support
Make realistic product mockups for a small shop
A furniture maker used Gemini to put a photo of a bed he built into different styled rooms. He posted the pictures with his number to take orders.
Caution. Label images as illustrations so customers aren't misled.
Work & Operations
Calm down an angry email before sending
When something makes them furious, one person asks ChatGPT to rewrite the email so they sound reasonable. It works.
Work & Operations
Summarize meetings you missed
Missed a meeting? One person has AI summarize it so they can catch up in a few minutes.
Caution. Check your workplace allows sharing meeting notes with AI.
Money & Bills
Figure out why a state charged you a tax penalty
A seasonal business owner was charged a penalty rate and asked ChatGPT why. It found their new payroll provider hadn't filed wage reports for the off-season quarter.
Caution. Don't paste tax ID numbers.
Work & Operations
Get advice on starting a business
Over a few weeks, one person used Claude for advice on starting a business and building the first version of their product.
Sales Marketing & Support
Understand what a customer's email is really asking
Some customer emails were confusing, so one worker used ChatGPT to figure out what people were really asking and to help word the replies.
Life Admin & Home
Combine two internet connections for a reliable home office
Cable outages kept wrecking one person's video calls. With Claude, they set up a bonded connection using two internet providers for about $177, compared with $489 for a commercial option.
Sales Marketing & Support
Learn from a bagel shop's AI marketing backlash
A Vermont bagel shop owner used AI to edit his social media posts. Customers pushed back with bad reviews, so he took them down and apologized. He still isn't against AI.
Caution. Customers may react badly to obviously AI-made content.
Work & Operations
Structure a talk or presentation
A speaker used Claude to shape a talk with Patrick Winston's "How to Speak" method. He wrote the content himself and let the AI organize and edit it.
Life Admin & Home
Sort thousands of unread emails by importance
Facing more than 7,000 unread emails, one person built a tool that sends them to Claude in batches to sort into four priority levels. Its choices closely matched his own.
Caution. Be careful sharing full email contents.
Work & Operations
Use AI for a small business plan and website
Claude saved one small business owner money, they said, by helping build the website, write a business plan, and hunt for commercial space.
Work & Operations
Plan an antique show event
One person said their wife planned an entire antique show with ChatGPT.
Work & Operations
Sanity-check a small contract before signing
A contractor had Claude review their contracts. It flagged clauses to cut or change that they'd never have paid a lawyer to catch on a small job.
Caution. Not legal advice.
Work & Operations
Brainstorm a business idea as a mind map
One person used ChatGPT to brainstorm a business that mixes a boutique clothing store with sewing classes, and got the ideas back as a mind map they could picture.
Work & Operations
Write survey questions for staff feedback
To get staff feedback on working from home, one manager had ChatGPT write the survey questions.
Work & Operations
Write performance review comments
Performance reviews ask for comments on things like communication and teamwork. One manager uses ChatGPT to help write them.
Caution. Don't paste names or private HR details.
Work & Operations
Recover lost knowledge when an employee leaves
When a key employee at an e-commerce business left suddenly, the team used AI on their Google Workspace files to answer questions about vendor accounts.
Money & Bills
Build invoicing and bookkeeping for a freelance business
One freelancer used Codex to build a timesheet, invoicing, and basic bookkeeping system for their business.
Money & Bills
Track business expenses you need to file
Expense reports were never one founder's strength, so they built an app that uses AI to guess which company each charge belongs to and whether it's reimbursable.
Sales Marketing & Support
Write media notes for a public project unveiling
Helping out at their dad's consulting firm, one person gave ChatGPT the project details, audience, and why it mattered, and got usable media notes for a public agency event.
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