Got IT?
Discover leading Managed IT Service Providers across USA, Canada & the United Kingdom.
- 100s of leading MSPs
- Find a MSP near you
- Latest IT news for SMBs
The 5 Hours a Week Every SMB Owner Is Losing (And How AI Gets Them Back)
It’s a typical Tuesday, and you’re doing the tedious tasks that you don’t want to do, but need to do. As a small business owner, you decided to start a business, not start a job. Research shows that most small business owners work over 50 hours a week, and many of those hours involve administrative work. Admin work is the biggest drain for a business owner, and it’s hours that could be better spent on building new products, talking to customers, or hiring more staff. This story is the same for many SMBs, but the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and the tools that go with it have c
It’s a typical Tuesday, and you’re doing the tedious tasks that you don’t want to do, but need to do. As a small business owner, you decided to start a business, not start a job. Research shows that most small business owners work over 50 hours a week, and many of those hours involve administrative work. Admin work is the biggest drain for a business owner, and it’s hours that could be better spent on building new products, talking to customers, or hiring more staff. This story is the same for many SMBs, but the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and the tools that go with it have cut down on a lot of the tedious overhead you’re familiar with. You’ve probably seen ads promoting dozens of tools by now. AI isn’t magic, and there isn’t a single tool that will eliminate all your overhead, but AI tools can help you become more productive. This article will tell you how. Where Small Business Owners Actually Lose Their Time Each Week You’ve heard the cliche that there isn’t enough time in the day, and that feeling rings true for many SMB owners. After a 12-hour day, you think back to what you did and wonder where the time went. The tedious tasks are small individually, but the time aggregates into several hours of your available work week. Suggested Read: SMB Technology & Cyber Resilience Index — Q1 2026 SMB owners report that the time goes to: As you can see from the list, the total time for each item isn’t too bad, but imagine these issues at scale. The fraction of an hour turns into several hours as your business grows. You could hire more staff, but most SMBs run on a tight budget. Before You Start: The Right Way to Think About AI as a Small Business Owner Some people expect AI to be black magic that removes all work from their plate, but it’s important to understand what AI can and cannot do for you. AI is like a tireless assistant that must be told what to do, supervised, and all output reviewed. It needs supervision, but it never forgets once you give it explicit instructions. Just like an assistant, you need to give AI instructions and never let it handle critical business activities without first reviewing its output. Never just “set it and forget it” with AI automation. In addition to instructions, AI assistants also need time from you to train them. Take email automation as an example. You need to train AI to answer in the tone that you want and ingest your current policies, responses, and common customer questions. At first, this seems like a time sink, but as the weeks progress you’ll notice that it gets better and your time is freed up. Once you have more time, you start to realize that AI gives you a significant return on your investment. Your time is valuable, and AI frees up that time so that you can focus on other aspects of your business. Annually, AI could save you thousands in lost time to tedious projects. How to Use AI to Recover Those 5 Hours — A Practical Playbook for US SMBs It’s easy to say that AI can help free up your valuable time, but it doesn’t help if you don’t know how. Here are a few common problems and what AI can do to help reduce overhead and the time it takes to perform busy work. Stop Writing Every Email From Scratch Let’s say that you have customers emailing you every day with common questions. One of those questions is how much a product costs, or maybe they want to know what is your typical turnaround time. AI can be the recipient of your inbox, scan for common questions, and reply to the sender automatically. Not only does this save you time, but it also sends a positive message to potential customers that you are good with communication and will get back to them quickly. Let AI Own Your Scheduling Back-and-Forth Cancellations are a normal part of business life, but they can take up too much time when your entire day is scheduled meetings. When a person cancels, AI can pick up on the context of the message and ask the sender to reschedule. Your AI assistant can pass along a link to your scheduler or make suggestions for a new time and day based on your current workload and calendar of events. Automate Your Quotes, Invoices, and Proposals This problem is where AI probably helps the most. Some SMB owners spend hours on quotes, invoicing, and proposals. You might have them templated, but you still need to fill out documents. With AI, you can give it the information necessary to fill out the form, and your AI assistant can fill out templates within seconds. In enough time, you don’t need to give it pricing or product information. You can simply tell it to fill out documents based on meeting notes or information it gets from customer emails, calls, or messages. Give Your FAQs a 24/7 Voice Instead of answering common questions in email, you also have the option to put a chatbot on your website. This chatbot acts like a customer service assistant ready to answer any questions. Web users can ask questions about your service, products, business hours, policies, and any other information you train it to use. Chatbots cut down on customer service time and your own. Providing quick answers to questions also gives potential customers faster responses so that they don’t need to take time to call you or find an email to ask questions. Batch Your Content — Don’t Create It Daily Marketing is probably the worst time sink in this list, but it’s also the most essential for business growth. The key to social media marketing is staying consistent with posts. Quality over quantity is a better strategy than uploading just for post numbers. Your AI assistant
Read full post on gocorptech.com
MSPdb™ News
Cyber Insurance Requirements San Diego: What Small Businesses Must Prove at Renewal
Cyber insurance requirements San Diego small businesses face at renewal: MFA, tested backups, EDR, training, and proof your controls actually work.
Cyber insurance requirements San Diego small businesses face at renewal: MFA, tested backups, EDR, training, and proof your controls actually work.
Read full post on fitsolutions.biz
Root Access Costs $1279
Best vCISO Providers in Dallas (2026)
GXA leads our 2026 list of the best vCISO providers in Dallas with a Security ... Learn More
GXA leads our 2026 list of the best vCISO providers in Dallas with a Security ... Learn More
Read full post on uprite.com
CTS Names Dan Levy Cyber Practice Manager to Lead Its Cybersecurity Program
Security engineering leader joins to guide CTS’s managed security, SOC, and cyber advisory services For Immediate ReleaseNovember 13, 2026 BROOKLYN, NY – CTS, an IT and cybersecurity solutions provider dedicated to helping K-12 schools, nonprofits, and businesses thrive through smart, secure and cost-effective technology, today announced that Dan Levy has joined the company as Cyber
Security engineering leader joins to guide CTS’s managed security, SOC, and cyber advisory services For Immediate ReleaseNovember 13, 2026 BROOKLYN, NY – CTS, an IT and cybersecurity solutions provider dedicated to helping K-12 schools, nonprofits, and businesses thrive through smart, secure and cost-effective technology, today announced that Dan Levy has joined the company as Cyber
Read full post on charterts.com
Confirm Your IT Provider Tests Backup Restores Effectively
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, partnering with a reliable IT provider is essential for business continuity. A critical component that often gets overlooked is the provider’s backup and restore testing procedures. It’s insufficient to merely ask if backups are performed; you must validate their effectiveness against real-world scenarios. So, how do you confirm whether your... <p>
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, partnering with a reliable IT provider is essential for business continuity. A critical component that often gets overlooked is the provider’s backup and restore testing procedures. It’s insufficient to merely ask if backups are performed; you must validate their effectiveness against real-world scenarios. So, how do you confirm whether your... <p>
Read full post on xitx.com
Check Point Zero-Day Lets Attackers Take Root — and One Case Ended in a Wipe
Check Point spent this week notifying customers that someone had turned its own gateways against them. The flaw at the centre of it, Check Point...
Check Point spent this week notifying customers that someone had turned its own gateways against them. The flaw at the centre of it, Check Point...
Read full post on nextekit.com
Personal Devices for Work: Key Decisions Before You Allow Them
A BYOD policy, short for bring your own device, sets the rules for when employees can use personal devices like phones, tablets, and computers for work. Many businesses already allow it informally, often without ever deciding to. It usually starts with email on a personal phone. Then someone finishes a report on a home computer,
A BYOD policy, short for bring your own device, sets the rules for when employees can use personal devices like phones, tablets, and computers for work. Many businesses already allow it informally, often without ever deciding to. It usually starts with email on a personal phone. Then someone finishes a report on a home computer,
Read full post on rbsit.com
Business Updates and Restarts: How to Plan a Maintenance Window
An update can interrupt payroll, a customer call, or a shared application when nobody has agreed on the timing. A maintenance window gives the business and IT provider a defined period to do the work, handle exceptions, and check that people can resume their tasks.
An update can interrupt payroll, a customer call, or a shared application when nobody has agreed on the timing. A maintenance window gives the business and IT provider a defined period to do the work, handle exceptions, and check that people can resume their tasks.
Read full post on secondstartechnologies.com
Dental IT Support Has a Scheduling Problem, and Clinics Are Paying for It
If you run a dental practice in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, or anywhere in Greater Vancouver, your daily success depends on a carefully orchestrated schedule. Every appointment in the operatory is timed to the minute. Your hygienists, dental assistants, and front-desk coordinators work in sync to ensure patients receive exceptional care. Yet, many practices find...
If you run a dental practice in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, or anywhere in Greater Vancouver, your daily success depends on a carefully orchestrated schedule. Every appointment in the operatory is timed to the minute. Your hygienists, dental assistants, and front-desk coordinators work in sync to ensure patients receive exceptional care. Yet, many practices find...
Read full post on daxtech.ca
Microsoft 365 Service Disruption
Just Added to MSPdb™
MSP Jobs
All Jobs
MSP Marketplace
View All
Popular MSPs
View All
