How to Find Tasks You Can Automate With AI in One Afternoon
Running a business comes with an endless list of responsibilities. Between managing emails, following up with customers, updating records, and project management, it’s easy to spend hours on administrative tasks that take your attention away from more important work.
Many of these tasks follow the same steps every day, making them good candidates for automation.
With the right tools, artificial intelligence (AI) can help businesses reduce this repetitive work.
If you’re wondering how to automate business tasks with AI, you don’t need to overhaul your entire operation to get started. Set aside one afternoon to examine your workflow, identify opportunities for improvement, and look into tools that can help.
Step 1: Identify the Bottlenecks in Your Workflow
Before introducing a new technology, take a closer look at how your business currently operates.
A workflow bottleneck is any task or process that slows down progress, creates unnecessary work, or prevents other responsibilities from moving forward.
For example, your team might spend time manually transferring information from website forms into a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Maybe incoming emails require constant sorting, or someone has to remember to send follow-up reminders after every customer interaction.
These processes may work, but they require more time and attention than necessary.
So start by reviewing your daily responsibilities. Pay particular attention to tasks that happen frequently, involve repeated steps, or require information to be entered into multiple systems.
Ask yourself how long each task takes, how often it occurs, and whether the process could run with less manual involvement.
The goal is to identify where your time goes and which responsibilities could benefit from a more efficient process.
Step 2: Explore AI Tools for Business Automation
Once you identify opportunities for improvement, the next step is finding tools that support your workflow.
There are several AI platforms businesses can use to organize information, simplify administrative work, and assist with everyday responsibilities.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT can help draft emails, summarize documents, organize information, and develop repeatable processes.
Depending on your available integrations, it can also work with connected business applications to retrieve information and assist with supported tasks.
Claude
Claude is useful for reviewing lengthy documents, summarizing information, analyzing processes, and working through complex business tasks.
Businesses can use it to review existing procedures, identify inefficiencies, and develop clearer workflows.
Google Gemini
Google Gemini offers AI assistance within supported Google Workspace applications, including Gmail and Google Docs.
It can help summarize email conversations, draft responses, and retrieve information, depending on your Workspace plan and available features.
Keep in mind that AI assistance and automation are different. Some tasks require additional tools or integrations to connect your business systems and trigger actions automatically.
The best choice for you depends on your preferences, but also the programs your business already uses and the processes you want to improve.
Step 3: Identify Everyday Tasks You Can Automate
You may be surprised by how many routine responsibilities can be streamlined with AI and workflow automation.
Here are some common examples:
- CRM data entry: Automatically create contact records or tasks when someone submits a website form.
- Email management: Filter unwanted messages, categorize incoming emails, and prioritize important communications.
- Customer follow-ups: Generate reminders or draft follow-up messages after meetings, inquiries, or appointments.
- Meeting notes: Summarize discussions and identify action items for your team.
- Lead management: Organize incoming inquiries and assign them to the appropriate team members.
- Appointment reminders: Automatically send confirmations and reminders for scheduled appointments.
- Recurring reports: Collect information from connected systems and prepare regular performance summaries.
- Task management: Create and assign tasks when specific actions occur within your workflow.
These are only a few possibilities. Many businesses already have software with built-in automation capabilities they aren’t fully utilizing.
Examples of Manual Tasks and Automation Opportunities
| Business Task | Manual Process | Automation Opportunity |
| Email management | Sorting and categorizing messages | Automatically filter and organize incoming emails |
| CRM updates | Entering new leads manually | Create records from website form submissions |
| Meeting notes | Writing summaries and action items | Generate summaries and draft follow-up tasks |
| Reporting | Collecting data from multiple sources | Compile recurring reports from connected systems |
| Customer follow-ups | Tracking when to contact leads | Trigger reminders or prepare follow-up messages |
Some of these improvements can be implemented directly within your existing software. Others require an automation platform or integration to connect different applications.
Step 4: Determine Which Tasks Are Worth Automating
Finding opportunities for automation is relatively simple. Deciding which ones are worth implementing requires a little more thought.
Start with tasks that happen frequently and follow a predictable sequence.
For example, if every new website inquiry requires someone to create a CRM contact, assign a team member, and schedule a follow-up, that process may be a strong candidate for automation.
The steps are consistent, the information is already available, and the outcome is easy to verify.
On the other hand, a task requiring personal judgment, detailed customer conversations, or important business decisions may benefit more from AI assistance than complete automation.
A useful way to prioritize is to consider three factors: frequency, time required, and consistency.
Tasks that occur often, take considerable time, and follow the same process are generally good places to start.
It’s also important to evaluate the systems you’re using. Automating an inefficient process doesn’t necessarily improve it. Sometimes, simplifying the workflow itself produces the biggest benefit.
Step 5: Test One Automation Before Changing Everything
Once you’ve selected a task, start with a small test.
Let’s say your business receives customer inquiries through its website.
Currently, someone checks the form submissions, copies the contact information into your CRM, and manually creates a follow-up task.
With the appropriate integration, you can create an automated workflow that transfers the information into your CRM and assigns a follow-up task when a new form is submitted.
Instead of repeating those steps for every inquiry, your team can focus on responding to customers.
Test the workflow with sample submissions and confirm that the information reaches the correct destination.
Check for missing fields, duplicate records, and incorrectly assigned tasks. Once the process works consistently, monitor it to make sure it continues performing as expected.
Starting with one manageable improvement gives you an opportunity to understand how automation works before introducing it into more complicated processes.
What Shouldn’t You Automate With AI?
While AI offers opportunities to improve efficiency, not every responsibility should be handled automatically.
Processes involving sensitive customer information, financial decisions, confidential business records, or important client communications require additional consideration.
AI-generated content and automated actions can contain errors, so human oversight is still important.
Before connecting AI tools to your business systems, review their privacy settings, permissions, and data-handling policies. Make sure your team understands what information can be shared and which actions require approval.
For many businesses, the most effective approach combines automation for routine responsibilities with human involvement where experience and judgment are essential.
Ready to Improve Your Business Systems?
Finding opportunities for automation is a great first step to saving time. Making sure your tools, processes, and systems work together is just as important.
At Jason Hunter Design, we help businesses identify opportunities for improvement and develop solutions that support their operations. If you’re looking to automate those repetitive tasks, improve your existing systems, or explore what’s possible with AI, we’d love to help.
Fill out the form below to tell us about your business and how we can help make your workflow more efficient.
Jason Bass is a marketing strategist, community builder, and founder who turns bold ideas into real momentum. At the helm of Jason Hunter Design, Pixel Partner Digital, and The Citizen, he brings clarity to chaos, structure to startups, and firepower to brands ready to scale. Known for his visionary thinking and down-to-earth leadership, Jason helps businesses grow — not just in revenue, but in purpose and impact.