Which task should you hand to AI first?
By Rodney Noriega, Founder, Universal Enablement · Published Oct 12, 2026
Short answer
Start with a task that's repetitive, takes real hours every week, is mostly reading or writing, and isn't a big deal if a draft is wrong. Common examples: sorting a shared inbox, copying data from PDFs into a spreadsheet, drafting quote replies, and summarizing meetings. Don't start with anything that makes decisions about people or money.
AI can do parts of most jobs, but rarely a whole job. So think in tasks. Here's a quick way to find your first one:
- Ask each person to list the tasks they repeat every week and roughly how long each takes.
- Mark the ones that are mostly reading, sorting, copying or writing.
- Cross off anything where a mistake would affect a customer's money, safety or job.
- Pick the one with the most hours left.
Tasks that often come out on top for 10 to 200 person businesses:
- Sorting a shared inbox and drafting first replies
- Entering data from invoices, forms or PDFs
- Drafting quotes or proposals from a template
- Turning call or meeting notes into summaries and follow-ups
- Chasing overdue paperwork with reminder drafts
Most of these work with tools you may already pay for, like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Microsoft Copilot, plus a simple connection to your email or files.
This is the Find step in how we work. Our free 30-minute workflow review is this exercise, done with you.
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