Is AI really saving you time?

AI speeds up the task, but it also expands the ambition.

Hi friends,

Quick one before we get into it. We’ve just launched a Free AI Audit for SMEs at otherstuff.ai/ai-audit.

It’s a structured assessment designed to help identify where AI could make the biggest commercial difference in your business. The focus is on recurring workflows that are consuming time, slowing decisions, or creating operational risk.

We review the responses, map the strongest opportunities, and walk you through where to start and why it’s worth acting on.

Take a look if it’s useful.

Now to this fortnight’s Good Stuff.

AI Doesn’t Save You Time

This week on The Good Stuff, we asked whether AI actually saves time.

The obvious answer is yes.

But, there was something I noticed while rebuilding our Other Stuff website this week. AI speeds up the task, but it also expands the ambition.

A few years ago, there were plenty of things I wouldn’t have even considered trying when building a website. The work would have been constrained by what I could build, or what I could afford to get made.

But that’s changed.

I can quickly test different layouts, designs, and animations without the time it used to take.

Therefore the work got faster, right?

But because that capability ceiling has been shattered, I inevitably get more ambitious with what I want to build, I test more directions, I trial different aesthetics, precisely because it got faster.

But, I spent more time in the aggregate.

That matters for SMEs because “AI saves time” is too narrow a way to think about it.

The better question is which parts of the work actually need you?

For us, that comes back to our Up Up Down framework - the way we think about building durable small businesses.

Margin Up: if the work is repeatable, it should be under pressure. Weekly reports, monthly processes, quarterly compliance tasks, client onboarding, proposal templates — AI changes the economics of turning repeated manual work into systems.

Capital Up: if the work requires judgment, AI can increase the return on human time. It gives capable people more room to explore, test, refine, and push the work toward a better outcome.

Risk Down: faster output still needs review. AI can generate the draft, the design, the workflow, or the code quickly. But someone still has to decide whether it is right, whether it fits, and whether it is actually good.

Some work probably should get cheaper. Repeatable, mechanical, low-judgment work should be automated wherever possible.

But high-quality, iterative, judgment-heavy work may not take less time. It may simply get better.

We got into this and more in the Big Episode 55 of The Good Stuff

The Perth AI Roundtable is Returning on Thursday, May 21st

Last month we hosted our first Perth AI Roundtable event.

Our aim is to bring groups of people together to learn more about AI, what's emerging and where the opportunities are, through discussion rather than sitting through presentations.

There's still a gap between what people think AI can do and what it actually does, particularly in small and medium sized businesses.

So our aim is to create a space to help close that gap and support our local community.

If you couldn't get along last month, we'll be running our next one on May 21st at Rocky Ridge Brewery, Burswood.

It’s free.

Please RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/the-perth-ai-roundtable/events/314328162/

Hope to see you there!

Three Things in AI for SMEs

1. 42% of Aussie SMEs are now using AI — Margin Up NAB Economics released new research showing 42% of Australian SMEs are already using AI, with a further 14% planning to adopt it. Marketing and sales (51%) and operations and logistics (39%) lead the use cases, with property services (69%) the standout sector and retail (22%) and transport (21%) lagging. What it means for you - Your competitors are increasingly in the 42%. The gap is opening fastest in the most measurable, time-consuming parts of running a small business. NAB report →NAB News Marine Business News

2. PwC: 20% of companies are capturing 75% of AI's gains — Capital Up A new global PwC AI Performance study found a small group of companies is pulling sharply ahead in the race to generate real financial returns from AI. The leaders are two to three times more likely to use AI to identify growth opportunities and reinvent their business model, and twice as likely to redesign workflows to incorporate AI rather than simply adding AI tools. What it means for you - "AI as productivity tool" only goes so far. The compounding returns come from using it to build things you couldn't build before — products, services, IP — not just to do existing tasks faster. PwC study →PwCPwC

3. 75% of Aussie SME finance leaders want AI — only 25% are using it — Risk Down A new Australian SME CFO survey found 75% of finance leaders are interested in using AI to automate finance workflows, but only 25% report currently using AI-enabled tools. 67% selected rising costs and inflation as a major challenge, with 43% citing cash flow management. What it means for you - The gap between intent and action is becoming a competitive risk. The finance teams that close it first will ride out the next round of cost pressure with thinner overhead and better visibility. Press release →Media DatabaseMedia Database

That's all for today

If this resonated, we’d love for you to forward this to one person who might enjoy exploring these ideas too.

Cheers,
Pete & Andy