John Wheeler

I’ve lived through the PC revolution, Windows, the Internet and the cloud. I believe AI is the next seismic shift. I’m exploring what it means for business—and building along the way. Translating emerging technology into business advantage.

Where could a photo help explain a business problem better than a written description? What would an AI assistant need to know about the scale, location, or timing before interpreting it?

When a pilot produces fewer mistakes, check where the remaining mistakes occur. A lower error count is encouraging, but one error on a high-consequence task may matter more than several harmless ones.

Before letting an AI assistant calculate a deadline, specify whether weekends and holidays count. The arithmetic can be correct while the business rule is wrong.

Which customer choice does your standard process make unnecessarily difficult? Could AI help offer a useful option without turning every order into a custom project?

An AI-generated chart needs a clear denominator. Ten complaints out of a hundred orders tells a different story from ten complaints out of ten thousand. Keep the volume behind the percentage visible.

When your business searches its records and finds nothing, how do you tell whether the answer is truly absent or the search missed it? What would you want AI to try next?

Keep a version of the instructions used for each automated job. If the rules change during the week, you should still be able to explain why Monday's result differs from Friday's.

Which part of your work depends on knowing the difference between a policy and a common practice? How would an AI assistant learn which one applies?

Before using AI to translate a business document, check names, quantities, dates, and units separately from the wording. A fluent translation can still change an important detail.

What would you want an AI assistant to do when a customer asks to speak to a person? Where should that handoff go so the customer does not have to start over?

When an AI assistant suggests several improvements, check whether they compete for the same person's time. A list of individually reasonable projects can still be an unrealistic plan.

Ask AI to help prepare a plain-text version of an important customer document. Check that headings, reading order, and essential instructions still make sense without color, images, or a complex layout.

Which form in your business asks for information nobody uses? Would you remove the field, or is there a decision it should be supporting?

Before an AI experiment starts, decide what result would make you stop it. Include the effect on customers and employees, not just the time or money saved. A clear stopping rule makes an unsuccessful test useful.

How does your business capture what went right on an unusually smooth day? Could a short AI-assisted review help identify something worth repeating?

When reviewing sales history with AI, flag periods when the product was out of stock. A week with no sales does not tell you how many customers would have bought it if it had been available.

Which routine business conversation would benefit from better preparation rather than a faster reply? What would you want an AI assistant to gather before you pick up the phone?

Give automated work a unique job ID. If a request is retried after a timeout, check whether it already succeeded before starting it again. That matters when the action creates an order, sends a message, or changes a balance.

What does your team do when a familiar product is discontinued? Could AI help compare replacements while keeping the customer's must-have requirements separate from nice-to-have features?

Test how to undo an automated change before you need to. Keep the original values and check what happens to later work that used the changed record. Reversing one field may not reverse its effects.