A feature piece from our Winter 2025 issue of the Lancaster Thriving Publication
By Dominic Tancredi, CEO & Co-Founder, Dom & Tom
With the rise of modern AI – barely three years old in its current form – small businesses keep asking the same question: How do we compete with bigger players using this technology?
At the recent Small Business Summit here in Lancaster, I spoke about this in my talk, Small Teams, Big Impact: How AI Can Accelerate Your Business. The focus came down to three things any organization can begin applying today:
- A simple framework for understanding AI
- A practical way to incorporate it into your workflows
- A mindset that unlocks creativity, security, and innovation
I’ve been on the “technology treadmill” for more than two decades. We’ve survived – and thrived – through new programming languages, new devices, and the rise of mobile. A colleague recently told me, “It’s been exhausting.” I get it. But I’m still excited, because AI isn’t just another tool.
It’s a lego-flywheel – a system that lifts us from the mundane, sparks new ideas, and accelerates our ambitions.
AI is going to augment businesses, not replace them. Hopefully, yours as well.
The Power of Small
Small businesses have more going for them than they realize. We’re lean, adaptive, and fast. After running Dom & Tom – a boutique digital agency – for 16+ years, I can say confidently: our size is our advantage.
AI amplifies that advantage across three core parts of any business:
- Back-office operations
- Sales and marketing
- Your core services or product delivery
Before we ask where AI can help, we need to understand how it helps.
Automate, Augment, Accelerate
Three practical ways to put AI to work inside your business:
1. Automate
Automation hands off repeatable tasks to AI agents – whether using Zapier, n8n, or baked-in meeting tools. Many virtual meeting platforms now handle automated note-taking (Otter, Firefly, Gemini for Google Meet, Zoom Notes), freeing your team to focus entirely on the conversation.
You instantly reduce noise and reclaim time.
2. Augment
Augmentation makes your team more effective without replacing anyone. Think of AI as laying out the “tools on the table” so your people can focus on the work that matters.
AI can draft proposals, generate marketing concepts, clean up documentation, or create onboarding guides. Automation creates efficiency between steps; augmentation improves the steps themselves.
3. Accelerate
Small business owners wear a dozen hats. AI becomes a strategic partner – helping you explore ideas, brainstorm campaigns, validate strategies, draft job descriptions, or act as an unbiased sounding board.
The key: train your AI to be honest, not just agreeable.
Case Studies: Problem -> Solution -> Result
Reverse Logistics Invoice Automation (Shipping & Ops)
Problem: A client processing cargo disposal at U.S. ports was drowning in manual billing and reconciliation.
Solution: AI-assisted automation that reads emails, extracts data, generates invoices, and flags anomalies with Human-in-the-Loop oversight.
Results: Billing cycles shrank from days to hours. Accuracy surpassed 90%. Collections improved.
Open Minds – AI Knowledge Engine (Healthcare)
Problem: Tens of thousands of PDFs and research reports trapped essential knowledge.
Solution: A Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system turning their entire library into a conversational knowledge engine.
Results: Searches that once took hours now take seconds.
Dom & Tom Internal – AI for Engineering Velocity
Problem: Multiple simultaneous projects slowed execution and increased coordination overhead.
Solution: AI-driven GitHub/Teamwork/Slack summaries, automated ticket creation, sprint retrospective intelligence, and code-pattern scanning.
Results: Engineering velocity increased 25%; defect resolution doubled; QA cycles shortened – without adding staff.
The Human Side of AI
AI works best when paired with human creativity, judgment, and integrity. At Dom & Tom, our “no surprises” approach means we treat AI as a partner – not a replacement for the relationships and expertise that drive real business outcomes.
Technology should empower your teams, not overwhelm them.
The future of small business isn’t artificial – it’s amplified.
Where to Begin
Start with one problem. Pilot one tool. Measure the result.
You’ll be encouraged by what you find.
not secure