What not to hand an AI assistant (yet)
AI assistants are genuinely useful for drafting, summarising, sorting and researching. They're also confidently wrong often enough that some work shouldn't leave your desk without your own judgement on it. Here's where we draw the line - including for our own assistant, Jarvis.
1. Anything that sends, pays or signs
Sending e-mails to clients, paying invoices, accepting contracts, posting in public. Let an assistant draft these; press the button yourself. A wrong sentence in a draft costs nothing; a wrong sentence that has been sent can cost a client.
2. Final numbers
Quotes, invoices, tax figures, payroll. AI can lay out the calculation and spot what looks odd, but check the arithmetic and the source figures before anyone relies on them.
3. Legal, medical and financial judgements
An assistant can explain what a clause usually means or summarise a regulation, which is a great start. Decisions with legal, health or money consequences need a qualified person who is accountable for the answer.
4. Other people's private data
Before pasting customer details, staff records or anything under a confidentiality agreement into a tool, check where that data goes, whether it's stored, and whether it's used for training. If you can't find out, leave it out or anonymise it first.
5. Things that need to be your voice
Apologies to an upset customer, condolences, a hard conversation with a supplier. A draft can help you find the words, but people can tell when nobody meant them.
6. Anything you can't check
If you don't know enough about a topic to spot a wrong answer, an AI answer is a starting point for research, not a conclusion. Ask it for sources and read them.
What's left is a lot
Drafting first versions, summarising long documents and calls, turning notes into task lists, sorting an inbox into "needs me / can wait / no action", brainstorming names and angles, reformatting data, and explaining unfamiliar topics. That's hours a week for most small businesses. Use the break-even calculator to pick which to start with.
A simple rule
AI drafts, you decide. Anything that commits your business to something gets a human yes. It's the same rule we build into Jarvis: it drafts, reports and suggests, and it doesn't send, buy or post without the owner.