Clever ways to use AI in your business
(that cost you nothing)
You came for the AI Bingo. Stay for the good stuff.
If you were in the room, thanks for playing along. I hope you shouted “AI Bingo” nice and loud.
Here is the big idea from the talk, in one line. AI is not magic. It is a pattern detector. It is very, very good at spotting the things you are too close to your own business to see.
And here is the part people find surprising. To start using it well, you do not need to buy anything.
There are thousands of shiny AI products out there, all shouting for your money. Most business owners think that is where you begin. It is not. You begin with the free tools you have probably already tried, like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot, and a much better set of questions to ask them.
So this is not a list of products. It is a list of ways to think. Use AI as a thinking partner, not a vending machine.
Do not ask AI to do the work for you. Ask it to challenge you.
Part one. Use AI as a sparring partner, not a servant.
Most people use AI as an eager assistant that agrees with everything they say. The clever move is to turn it into something that pushes back. It has seen the pattern of a thousand failed pitches, projects and arguments, so it can warn you how yours might go wrong.
The Devil's Advocate
Make it argue against you.
Paste in your proposal, your pitch, or a big decision you are about to make. Then tell it to demolish it. Find the holes. Predict every objection. Argue the other side as hard as it can.
A law firm can have it argue opposing counsel's case. An IT firm can ask where the build will break. Everyone can ask the same thing: what will the client push back on?
The Pre-Mortem
Fast-forward to the disaster.
Try this exact prompt. “It is a year from now and this project completely flopped. Write me the story of why.” It surfaces the risks you are currently too optimistic to see. Then you go and fix them, before they cost you a single penny.
The Translator
See it through their eyes.
Paste in your pitch, your quote, an email or your website copy. Then ask AI to react as the person on the other end. The sceptical buyer. The non-technical client. The overwhelmed prospect. It shows you exactly where you lose them, confuse them, or sound like everyone else.
Try “read this as a CEO who hates tech jargon,” or “read this as a stressed client who just wants plain English.”
Part two. Two more, for spotting the patterns you are missing.
The Complaint Detective
The pattern in what goes wrong.
Gather every complaint, refund, awkward review and “quick question” in one place. Ask AI for the recurring theme. Most owners fix problems one at a time, forever. This shows you the single root cause sitting behind most of them. Fix that, and the same problem stops coming back.
The Time X-Ray
The pattern in where your week goes.
Paste in a week or two of your calendar, or a rough note of how you spent your days. Ask AI to sort it into categories and find the pattern. Nearly everyone who does this discovers they are pouring hours into low-value work, and barely touching the thing that actually grows the business.
The one rule that ties it all together
Notice what every one of these has in common. AI finds the pattern. You decide what it means.
That is the bit the robots cannot do. AI can tell you what works. Only you can tell you what matters. Keep a human in charge of the meaning, and you will get the best out of every idea on this page.
Or, you could just hand the hard part over.
Everything above is free. It is also do-it-yourself. It takes time, a bit of discipline, and a spare hour you probably do not have.
Your marketing is the same story. You could spend your evenings wrestling with all of it. Or you could let us run it for you, properly, as one joined-up system.
That is Hero+. Our all-in-one marketing subscription. One team, one plan, one monthly fee, and your marketing finally off your plate.
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We built My Digital Hero on a simple idea. In a world where everyone puts others first, nobody comes second.
So whether you take these AI tips and run with them yourself, or you hand your marketing to us, we are glad you came. Use the free stuff. And when you want your marketing handled by real humans who genuinely care how you get on, you know where we are.
