01
Foreword
On productivity, patience, and the quiet shift happening now.
A FIELD GUIDE · 2026 · FIRST EDITION
The small business guide to agentic AI.
From curiosity to working digital teammates in 90 days.
20 min read · 31 pages · Published May 2026
Inside this guide.
9 sections, roughly 20 minutes end to end.
02
Agentic AI in plain language
What it is, what it isn't, and where it fits.
03
The five jobs agentic AI does best
Voice, email, quoting, scheduling, internal Q&A.
04
The readiness self-assessment
Five dimensions. One scorecard. Honest answers only.
05
The 90-day adoption roadmap
Discovery, pilot, scale. With weekly milestones.
06
Choosing your first teammate
A decision framework, not a feature comparison.
07
Building the business case
An ROI model that survives the budget meeting.
08
Risk, governance, and the human in the loop
Privacy, escalation, brand voice, quality monitoring.
09
Three case studies and what comes next
Composites from council, real estate, wellness. Then your seven days.
3 case studies.
Composites drawn from real deployments. Names abstracted, patterns real.
Local council
Replacing the after-hours answering machine.
- After-hours calls answered
- 100%
- Resolved without escalation
- 62%
- From decision to go-live
- 9 days
After-hours calls answered
Resolved without escalation
From decision to go-live
Real estate agency
Qualifying enquiries while every agent is at an inspection.
- Qualified enquiries per week
- 3.4×
- Average response time
- 11 min
- To steady-state
- 2 weeks
Qualified enquiries per week
Average response time
To steady-state
Wellness studio
Bookings without the four-message back-and-forth.
- Returned each week
- 11 hrs
- Drop in no-shows
- 38%
- To measurable impact
- 5 weeks
Returned each week
Drop in no-shows
To measurable impact
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