Last Updated March 10, 2025

Here is Nutum's guidance to small business owners on how to begin their AI journey.

In this piece, we answer several questions, such as:

• How should I begin learning about how to use practical AI in my business?
• What’s the first step toward understanding AI and its potential to improve my business?
• What process should I follow to implement AI?
• Who should I involve in this process?

Here’s our best advice on how to begin your AI journey!

---

Paul Roetzer’s Five Step AI Learning Journey Framework

Author and AI literacy pundit Paul Roetzer recommends a five-step approach to adopting AI.

Roetzer’s five steps are:

1. Curiosity
2. Understanding
3. Experimentation
4. Integration
5. Transformation

Here is our interpretation of Roetzer’s five steps, with our practical recommendations for how to follow them:

Step 1: Curiosity

Just do it. Find one AI-powered tool and play with it curiously.

We recommend beginning with Google Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/

Ask Gemini one initial question. (In AI parlance, these questions are called “prompts.”)

Here are some example prompts to spark your imagination:

• “What events caused World War I?”
• “My credit card APR is 23% and my balance is $7,000. How much interest will I pay each month if I don't pay off any of the principal?”
• “In the United States, what percentage of coffee shops have a drive-thru”

Prompt Gemini as if you’re hanging out with a teacher you trust. Consider its responses and fact check them if they seem off- don’t expect Gemini to be infallible.

Step 2: Understanding

After a few hours of playing with Gemini, you’ll start to intuit how prompting works. However, we recommend reading up on the "art of the prompt." Here are  two short articles we recommend:

The Business Professional's Guide to AI Prompting

Ultimate Guide to AI Prompting

TL;DR: craft expansive yet explicit instructions for the AI to follow.

Gemini’s value magnifies when you give it expert prompts. These prompting skills are broadly applicable to most AI tools.

Step 3: Experimentation

Now apply your prompting learnings to a wider set of AI-powered tools, particularly in a business context.

Brainstorm a list of pressing problems in your business. Do you struggle to hire quality workers? Are you slow to send invoices and follow up to get paid? Wondering if your pricing strategy is leaving money on the table?

Whatever your business problem, come back here to Nutum and tell explain it to our chatbot. Nutum can recommend an AI-powered tool that matches to your business challenge.

Nutum doesn't yet have a tool for every problem- but we're vetting new ones every day!

Nutum generally recommends tools that cost under $50 to try. Many offer limited free trials as well.

If you can’t think of a problem, here’s a one that might apply: Record a meeting and transcribe the results. Then generate a written summary of the conversation. Several Nutum-recommended tools offer limited free transcriptions and summaries.

After experimenting with Gemini plus one additional AI tool, new use cases and applications for AI will come to you naturally. For almost every task you perform, your mind will wander to: "is there a way I can just promot an AI tool to do that for me?"

Return to Nutum and search repeatedly- you might find one!

Step 4: Initial Integration

Ton achieve lasting leverage on daily AI use, next you’ll need to integrate it into your day-to-day work practices.

If you’re a solopreneur, making the leap from experimentation to integration will happen on your own timeline.

But if you have teammates or employees,convincing them to engage and embrace AI is the next step.

One common approach is to form an AI Committee to explore and socialize AI adoption. Here's some advice on forming one for your business.

Choose teammates who you think are ready for AI tools, or who have an important perspective on both the benefits and the risks. In larger organizations, the AI committee often includes legal or compliance leaders.

Before your committee digs into specific use cases or concerns, give each member enough time to follow Steps 1-3 above, to get their own heads around AI tools.

Your AI committee should work to surface key business problems that AI can help solve. But  it should also consider new problems that AI usage might bring.

Next, pick one business challenge to tackle, and find a couple AI-powered solutions to solve it.

At this point, many organizations embark on a “proof of concept” project. Here’s Gemini’s pithy explanation of a PoC:

A proof of concept (PoC) project validates a technology's feasibility before full implementation. It involves selecting a specific, limited-scope problem and testing a potential solution. The goal is to determine if the technology works as expected, integrates with existing systems, and delivers tangible benefits. Success metrics are defined upfront. A PoC minimizes risk by providing early insights and informs the decision on whether to invest further in the technology.

In researching this piece, we found excellent advice about how to conduct a PoC in a small business. (Here's one pithy post).

TL;DR: Integrating AI into your business takes teamwork, time, and patience. Plan accordingly.

Step 5: Transformation

Going from “playing with Gemini” to “I need to transform everything we do with AI” seems far-fetched and daunting. And it may not make sense for your small business.

But make no mistake- there's a role for AI in every business. And if you're not leveraging these time-saving tools, you know your competitors are exploring them right now.

As we learn more about how small businesses are making this transformation, we will add case studies and stories to our knowledge base for your consideration.

Thanks again to Paul Roetzer for the five steps framework.