AI · Ventures
AI for small businesses: where to use it first
Customer service, sales, money, inventory and promotion: a map of where AI helps small businesses today, with ready-to-copy requests.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
Artificial intelligence is already at the counter of Brazilian small businesses. A Sebrae survey conducted between March and May 2026, with more than 7,000 small business owners, found that 52% had used AI in the previous two weeks. The same survey showed the other side: many people still don't use it for lack of knowledge. This text is a map for those who want to start in the right place: the five areas where AI tends to help first, with a ready-made request for each one.
Don't try to use it for everything at once. Pick one area, use it for a month, measure the time you saved and only then move on to the next.
Why AI is not a chatbot
For a small business owner, "AI" often sounds like a customer-service robot that annoys customers. But the most valuable use is usually behind the scenes: thinking about prices, organizing numbers, preparing texts, understanding a contract.
In Bairo's view, AI is an extension of you, not a robot that speaks in your place. In his words, "artificial intelligence is an extension of the human, not the problem." The customer is still served by someone who knows their name.
Step by step today
1. Customer service. Put together a script with the questions you answer every day (hours, prices, delivery, returns). The AI organizes it, you review it and use it as a base on WhatsApp:
These are the 10 questions my customers ask most: [paste].
Write short, friendly and correct answers, in the tone of a
neighborhood business. Mark with [CHECK] anything that depends on me.
2. Sales and promotion. A monthly post calendar, product descriptions, promotion ideas for holidays:
I have a [type of business] in [city]. Put together a posting
calendar for next month, 3 a week, with a theme, short text
and a photo idea I can take myself with my phone.
3. Money. Organizing income and expenses, separating household money from business money, seeing where cash is leaking. Remove names and ID numbers from the spreadsheet before sending:
This spreadsheet has my income and expenses for the last 3 months.
Group the expenses by type, show the 3 that grew the most and
explain, in simple language, where the money is slipping away.
4. Inventory and purchasing. A list of what runs out fastest, suggested quantities, comparing suppliers based on your own notes.
5. Paperwork. Understanding a lease, a notice, a public procurement call. AI explains it in plain language and lists the questions for you to take to your accountant or lawyer.
To choose where to start:
I have a [type] business, with [number] people working.
The tasks that take up most of my time are: [list them].
Rank these tasks by the gain AI can bring and by how easy
it is to start. Suggest the first one for me to test for 30 days.
If you'd like to learn with support, Sebrae has free content and programs on AI for small businesses. It's worth looking for the one in your city.
How Bairo did it
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez knows small business from the inside. He says he opened a salon with his partner when their daughter was born, created a hair-care course and a natural cosmetics brand. In one of those phases he wanted to use artificial intelligence and augmented reality, was told it wouldn't work and gave up, only to see the same idea become a trend years later.
The comeback came later. He spent six months at home, in front of the computer, without knowing how to code, and built the foundation of the platform and the AI of CEASA Bank, a financial platform for agribusiness designed for those who sell at the wholesale food markets, many of them small traders. It's the kind of business he has never stopped seeing.
Precautions
In a small business, the customer trusts you, not the machine: don't paste customers' personal data into the tools (Brazil's General Data Protection Law, the LGPD, applies to companies of every size), review every answer before sending, confirm with your accountant anything involving taxes, don't offer AI-generated health or legal guidance as if it were yours, and watch for answers that treat customers differently by appearance, region or age.