If I Were Designing an AI Assistant for a Law Firm Today, Here’s What I’d Build

AI is being marketed to law firms as either transformative or dangerous. Depending on the headline, it will replace associates or expose firms to malpractice risk. I find both narratives unhelpful. If I were designing an AI assistant for a small, local law firm, perhaps a 3–10 attorney practice handling personal injury or family law, I wouldn…

Can AI Reduce Administrative Overhead by 40%? Modeling the Math for a Solo Founder

1. The Baseline: Where the Time Actually Goes AI’s promise is leverage. For large companies, that often means reducing headcount or headcount growth. For a solo founder, it means something much simpler and more urgent: reclaiming time. This question is not abstract for me. As I build Seattle App Studio, developing a portfolio of small bus…

Before You Automate Anything: How I Evaluate an AI Workflow for a Small Business

Artificial intelligence tools are improving quickly. Every week, a new platform promises to automate customer service, replace administrative work, or “10x productivity.” For a small business owner, that creates pressure. You start to wonder: Are we falling behind? Should we be using this? But in my experience, the right question isn’t…

Why Measuring AI’s Ability to Complete Long Tasks Matters — and What It Means for Businesses

When most people think about AI progress, they think about big, flashy moments: an AI winning a chess match, generating a song, or answering a complicated trivia question in seconds. But if you run a business, you know real success doesn’t come from a single clever move. It comes from sticking with a project — handling complexity over days, ev…

5 No-Code Tools for Creating AI Agents (Without a Developer)

Small businesses are under pressure to adopt AI—but the idea of “building an AI agent” still sounds like something only a Fortune 500 company could afford. Most small teams can’t hire an engineer, let alone a full-on AI consultant. That’s where no-code tools come in. But first—what exactly is an AI agent? In simple terms, it’s an …