Opening question for you all. How many AI tools are you paying for right now? And how many things did they hand you last week that you actually used?
I used to have people come up to me and say, “I have to do AI. What should I do?” That was the whole conversation.
Now I circle back around and ask them how it is going and this is what I get. “I’m doing AI, but it’s not getting me where I want.” “There’s so much I could do that my head is spinning.” “Is it even going to work? Is it worth it?”
It may sound strange but I am so excited about this shift! We’ve gone from “I’m going to be left behind” to “I’m overwhelmed by what’s possible,” and that’s a smarter place to be. People are asking real questions now. AI is SO powerful, but it can also get you to the wronger place faster.
Let’s go to the numbers, and they agree, they say it’s not just our corner of the world. A QuickBooks survey of more than 34,000 small and midsize businesses found 77% use AI regularly, up from 48% in mid-2024. But fewer than half track any specific result. A BCG study of nearly 12,000 workers found nearly half spend more time managing AI than doing the work. So, what does it look like now? We’ve got a lot of businesses spending money and getting busy, without knowing what they’re getting back.
Even Anthropic and OpenAI have noticed. They’ve each set up businesses that put AI engineers inside companies to learn how the work runs before they build anything. Yes, you can do this yourself. Yes, the tools are accessible. But what everything is pointing to is what I’ve been saying for a long time: you have to put the work in up front. It is critical you pair experience with the technology and clearly define what you want your AI to do and what NOT to do.
You know your business better than anyone. Break your work down small enough that you understand it. Know the result you want before you automate. And notice I said automate, not “put an agent on it.” Not everything is AI, and AI costs real money. It can get you a lot of places, and it can get you overwhelmed very quickly.
We just had the last in-person class of the Hawaiʻi Business Gym. 4 of those 3 classes talk about understanding the problem, uncovering exceptions, rethinking HOW the work should flow, looking at what success looks like, looking at the guardrails (the things we will not let AI do), and breaking it down into the first useful thing, then the next, and next. I love it. These six Haswaiʻi Island businesses brought in one operational challenge each and we dug in. It was WONDERFUL. One owner who’d barely touched AI is now using it as a brainstorming partner and getting great results. Another found steps in her process nobody realized were happening. AI helps us to see what’s possible, and some of the fixes were not AI at all. BUT AI did get us to think differently. Now we also know what good looks like coming out of it and can answer the question “ And how many things did AI hand you last week that you actually used?” and more importantly what did you do with that saved time.
The AI Receipt
Write down every AI tool, subscription, and scheduled agent you’re running. Next to each, put what it costs a month and whether you used what it made last week.
Some will be worth every dollar. Some won’t. Now you know which!
Try This: The Hour Test
Pick one thing AI saves you time on. Now where did that hour go? Did you leave early? Cut overtime? Reach one more customer? An hour saved only matters if you know what it produced.
Tell your AI this:
AI saves me about [amount of time] on [task]. Here’s what I did with that time: [honest answer]. Help me figure out what that time needs to produce for this to be worth it, and one thing I should track for the next two weeks.
COME JOIN US
Bring your answers and questions to out Showcase Day! It’s Thursday, November 19, from 3 to 5 PM at the Rose and Raymond Tseng Terrace at UH Hilo, and it’s open to the public. Come see what these owners built, and ask them where they started and what surprised them. They are our community and our community is making changes. Come join us and collaborate with your peers.
If they can do it, so can you.
Aloha,
Michelle
Stronger Businesses. Stronger Hawaiʻi. Hawaiʻi Business Gym is a six-week Kealani Solutions cohort for Hawaiʻi Island businesses, designed around one operational challenge per participant. Learn more at kealanisolutions.com/hawaii-business-gym.
Funded in part by the Hawaiʻi Technology Development Corporation (HTDC).
I draft with AI I have set up to write in my voice and to use only my company’s verified facts. Then I edit, fact-check, and approve everything you read. Building workflows like this for Hawaiʻi businesses is what I do.
www.kealanisolutions.com - LinkedIn - Instagram - Facebook - Book a call - michelle@kealanisolutions.com
