What AI already does in small businesses
- Writing faster. Emails, proposals, ads and meeting notes, with ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.
- Finding information. An assistant that knows your procedures, your contracts and your rates, and cites the document the answer comes from.
- Handling incoming documents. Invoices, forms and customer requests, read and filed without retyping anything.
- Answering customers. An assistant on your website that answers from your content and hands over to you when it needs to.
These are modest tasks. That’s exactly why they pay off quickly: they come back every week.
Examples by industry
| Industry | What AI can take over | What fits |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting firm | Read the documents clients send in, file them, ask for the missing ones. | An automation with AI |
| Property management firm | Answer tenants’ questions about procedures, sort repair requests. | An assistant, then a workflow agent |
| Construction company | Turn a request into a draft quote, follow up on quotes that got no reply. | A workflow agent |
| Law firm or notary’s office | Find a clause in the firm’s templates, prepare a first draft of a letter. | An assistant for the team |
| Retail and online stores | Answer questions about deliveries and returns, prepare product pages. | An assistant on the website, an automation |
| Hotel, restaurant, winery | Answer booking requests and common questions, in several languages. | An assistant on the website |
| Human resources | Answer employees’ questions about vacation, expense reports and company rules. | An assistant for the team |
In every case, the decision stays with you. AI prepares, and you approve. How an agent works, and what sets it apart from a chatbot, is explained on our page AI agents for business.
Where to start: the setup, step by step
- List the repetitive tasks. Ask everyone what they retype, sort or chase up every week, and how long it takes them.
- Pick just one task. The one that takes the most time and follows clear rules. Not necessarily the most impressive one.
- Test on your real documents. A few real cases are enough to see whether AI can handle it, before building anything.
- Build, then measure. The time saved, the mistakes to fix, and what the team thinks of it.
- Train the team. A tool nobody uses brings in nothing. A half-day AI workshop, prepared around your tasks, costs CHF 800.
- Move on to the next task. With what the first one taught you.
The AI audit: knowing where to start
The audit is there to help you choose. We talk with you and your team, map the repetitive tasks and the tools, and try AI on your real documents. You get a written plan, ranked by payback.
| Step | What’s done |
|---|---|
| 1. Interviews | With you and your team: what takes time, what’s frustrating, what gets lost along the way. |
| 2. Task map | The repetitive tasks, and the tools they touch. |
| 3. Quick tests | AI tried out on your real documents. |
| 4. Time saved | For each task, in hours and in francs. |
| 5. Written plan | The projects ranked by payback, each with its scope and its price. |
The audit costs CHF 1,000. It’s credited in full if you start an AI project within 30 days.
If your question is more like “Does ChatGPT talk about us?” that’s a different audit, the one for your AI visibility: CHF 800. It’s described on our AI visibility pricing page.
Bringing AI into the tools you already have
Bringing in AI doesn’t mean changing your software. Most of the time, we connect what you already use: your email, your contact form, your CRM, your calendar and your accounting software, such as bexio. AI steps in where someone used to have to read, sort or retype.
We build these connections with n8n or Make. When no off-the-shelf software fits the way you work, a custom tool becomes an option, from CHF 8,000 for a first version.
Which AI to choose for a small business
There’s no single AI for everything. Each need has its own tool.
| Your need | What fits | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Writing, summarizing and research, day to day | An off-the-shelf assistant: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini or Mistral | ChatGPT for business |
| Answering customers or your team from your documents | An assistant built on your content | AI agent cost |
| Handling emails, invoices or forms | An automation with AI, on n8n or Make | AI automation |
| Chaining several steps in your tools | A workflow agent | AI agents for business |
| Keeping track of your customers and your sales | An off-the-shelf CRM, or a custom CRM | CRM for small businesses |
What AI costs a small business
The cost comes in two parts. The setup work is paid once. The running costs come back every month.
| Project | Price |
|---|---|
| AI and automation audit | CHF 1,000 |
| AI workshop for your team | CHF 800 |
| Simple automation, 2 or 3 tools | CHF 800 |
| Automation with AI | CHF 2,000 |
| AI assistant on your content | CHF 3,000 |
| Workflow AI agent | CHF 4,000–6,000 |
| Custom internal tool, first version | CHF 8,000–16,000 |
Final prices, with no VAT on top: each project has a fixed price, written into the quote. All our AI services are gathered on our AI agency page.
After that, ongoing care is optional: CHF 200 a month for your automations, CHF 300 for an assistant.
CalculatorWhat is an automation worth to you?Pick your options: the price shows up right away.Elsewhere in Switzerland, the median published entry price is CHF 1,350 for an AI audit, CHF 1,700 for an automation and CHF 2,850 for an agent or a chatbot. The spread is wide: an AI audit goes from CHF 490 to 22,000. Published prices, surveyed in November 2026, mostly before VAT.
The risks, and the rule to set from the start
- Data. What happens to information you put into an AI tool depends on the tool and the subscription. For client or patient data, the provider and the settings are chosen according to your obligations.
- Mistakes. AI can be confidently wrong. Anything that goes out to a customer gets reviewed, at least at first.
- Personal accounts. Your employees may already be using AI with their own accounts. Better to know, and to give them some ground rules.
- Dependence. Keep the accounts, the documents and the automations in your name.
One page is enough to write these rules down: what can go into which tool, and what has to be reviewed. It’s often called an AI policy.
When another provider is a better fit
If your company has several hundred employees, has to keep all its data on its own servers or is launching an AI program across several sites at once, a large agency or a systems integrator will have the teams to run it. For a small business taking its first step, that’s usually not necessary.