Welcome back to AI for SME Success, your weekly dose of quick, actionable AI insights for your business.
Here’s what we’re covering today:
- Prompts, Workflows, and Agents: A Quick SME Guide.
- Google’s new Workspace Studio can Build Agents.
- Selling Tech to Canada? Check the New AI Register.
- Why Every Business Needs a Public AI Policy
- “AI for SME Success” Workshop on December 11.
AI Adoption
Prompts, Workflows, and Agents: A Quick SME Guide
Many major AI vendors have released their own agent technologies this year, Google included, with its new agentic tool launched just last week.
How do agents fit into the way small businesses adopt AI? There are three levels of AI adoption in business:
Level 1: One-Shot Prompts
The quickest entry point. You ask AI for a single output, an email draft, a summary, a list, and the task is complete.
Level 2: AI Workflows
Workflows require customization. They use your data and your operating procedures to create repeatable, reliable outcomes.
Level 3: Agents
Agents represent the next generation of AI automation. Agents are autonomous. They can be simple, automating everyday tasks with no coding, or highly advanced, orchestrating actions across multiple tools with significant development and testing. Agents operate based on triggers, such as receiving an email, adding a new team member, or reaching a threshold in your CRM.
AI Tools
Google’s New Workspace Studio Can Build Agents
Released on December 3, Google Workspace Studio lets you create custom AI agents in minutes within your existing Google ecosystem simply by describing what you need.
These agents can launch from completed meetings, spreadsheet changes, or group updates.
Here are some examples of low-risk automations which require minimal human oversight that you can build in Google Workspace Studio:
- “Digital Librarian” to automatically organize Drive files,
- “Meeting Prep” bot that digests client history before calls,
- “Expense Logger” to parse receipts into Sheets, or
- “Lead Classifier” to tag “Contact Us” emails by urgency.
AI Business with Government
Selling Tech to Canadian Government? Check the New AI Register.
On November 28 the Treasury Board launched the Government of Canada AI Register, a centralized database on the Open Government Portal. It currently lists over 410 active AI systems across federal institutions. The register tracks systems from early research to full deployment, excluding only low-risk commercial tools like spell-checkers.
If you sell technology to the government, this tool is for you.
Use the register to identify “early adopter” agencies like the Canada School of Public Service, find your gap, and pitch specialized applications that plug into their existing tech.
SMEs are already winning these contracts. The register lists niche Canadian players like, Knockri (HR Technology) and TradooIT (Specialized Translation).
AI Governance
📜Why Every Business Needs a Public AI Policy
AI is everywhere. We don’t just use AI anymore; we live in it. AI agents interact with other AI agents, and customers are increasingly losing track of what is real and trustworthy.
To give customers the assurance they deserve, large businesses typically do three things:
• Formalize their approach to AI through an AI policy
• Publish regular AI reports
• Certify their AI management systems
While a certified AI management system and detailed AI reports may be excessive for a small business, a clear, publicly available AI policy is essential.
According to the Solutions Review article How Big Tech Is Turning Empathetic AI Policy Into Practice: 5 Examples, tech giants use AI policies to drive business growth. Companies like Salesforce and Adobe have shown that prioritizing “empathetic” governance, centering user privacy and transparency, creates a powerful market differentiator.
A strong AI policy covers the essentials: the scope of AI use, your governance principles, roles and accountability, risk-management practices, and the standards you follow. It should also clearly explain how you protect information.
You can see an example of my policy at NataliaBrattan.com/policy, and here is an infographic I created using Nano Banana:
AI Training
Join me for a free webinar on December 11!
Talk soon,
Natalia