Guide · AI strategy

AI strategy for small businesses

Your leadership is asking what to do about AI. The useful answer is a plan: where AI saves your team time, which tools they use, how they use them safely, and what it costs. Here is what that plan covers and how I build it with you.

By Thomas Bedell, Fractional IT & AI Director · Updated October 7, 2026

Why a plan, not a tool

Most small companies meet AI one subscription at a time: someone signs up for a chatbot, someone else for a note-taker, and company information ends up in places nobody chose. The questions that matter go unanswered. Where does it actually save time? What data stays out? Who decides?

AI decisions are IT decisions. They touch your security, your data, your vendors and your budget, so I answer them in the same plan as the rest of your technology.

What the AI adoption plan covers

Why me

I've spent 35 years building the systems organizations run on, from network infrastructure to software, and now AI agents. I designed and built AgentWorks Studio, which builds AI agents for 27 industries, and the other products listed on what I built. That means the plan comes from someone who knows what AI does well in a real workflow and where it breaks.

How to get it

All work is remote, with clients across the United States. I work with three clients at a time.

Questions

What is an AI adoption plan?

A written plan that names where AI saves your team time, which tools they use, how they use them safely, and what it costs. With me it sits inside your 12-month IT and AI roadmap, with a budget.

Can I hire you for AI strategy only?

Yes, if you already have an IT director. Otherwise AI strategy is part of fractional IT and AI leadership, because AI decisions depend on your security, data and vendors.

What is a fractional AI director?

A part-time leader who sets AI direction for a company that doesn't need a full-time AI or technology executive. I combine it with fractional IT leadership as a Fractional IT & AI Director.

How do we start?

Book a 20-minute call. You can start with the IT & AI Roadmap; its fee is credited if you continue.

Tell Ava a little about your company, and she'll find a time on my calendar.

Book a 20-minute call