Before You Buy More AI Tools, Fix One Workflow

By Erick Bell | Advance Telecom Solutions

Your team probably has a task that takes longer than it should. Someone searches through email for the right attachment. A new inquiry waits while employees gather missing details. A meeting ends, but the follow-up never makes it into the system where work gets assigned.

Those are useful places to begin an AI conversation.

A recent session at an AppDirect conference highlighted a practical idea: getting value from AI requires attention to the way work actually happens. Tools matter, but so do your information, access controls, employees, and processes.

For business and IT leaders, a focused starting point can make the next decision much clearer.

Find the recurring problem

Start by asking one team to walk you through yesterday.

Where did they spend time searching? What did they copy between systems? Which handoffs stalled? What document needed a first draft before someone could review it?

Choose a problem you can describe in one sentence:

“Our team spends too much time collecting information before responding to a new customer inquiry.”

That gives you something concrete to evaluate. You can identify the inputs, the people involved, the systems they use, and the result you want to improve.

Check the security and data foundation

Before connecting AI to business information, understand where that information lives and who should be able to use it.

Ask which documents are current, who owns them, and whether existing access permissions are appropriate. Also ask employees which AI tools they already use and what they put into them. That conversation can reveal useful experiments as well as gaps in guidance.

Microsoft describes Work IQ as an intelligence layer that connects Copilot and agents with organizational knowledge and work context. That makes information access and governance part of the AI discussion.

An AI project is a good opportunity to review the information and permissions on which it will depend.

Begin with assistance

An early pilot might help employees summarize a meeting, locate relevant documents, prepare a first draft, or organize information for review.

Keep the scope manageable. Choose one team, one task, and a clear review process.