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What’s changing in
AI and why it matters
for your business

FROM THE AI DESK

Welcome to our June issue!

In this issue, we’re looking at AI from a few different angles: what Claude for Small Business includes, what stood out at Snowflake Summit 2026, how to make sense of AI benchmark scores, what ChatGPT Agents can do, and the difference between a workflow and a skill.

Taken together, these stories point to a broader shift: AI is becoming easier to use in everyday business work. Some tools are designed for practical tasks like summarizing information, drafting content, organizing work, and supporting repeatable processes. Others, especially agentic AI tools that work across systems or trigger workflows, depend more heavily on trusted data, shared definitions, and governance.

Wherever your organization is in its AI journey, there is something in this issue for you — whether you are exploring accessible starting points, evaluating more advanced use cases, or trying to understand what needs to be in place before AI can scale reliably.

We’re also going to have an AI Roundtable on Tuesday, July 28, at Nakoma Golf Club in Madison. If you’d like to see practical AI use cases explored live, this session will give you a chance to compare notes with peers, ask questions, and get a clearer sense of where AI may fit within your own teams.

What Changed in AI

Inside Claude for Small Business: What’s in the Box

Claude for Small Business is a package of workflows and connectors that puts Claude directly inside QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Docusign, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365.

It ships with 15 pre-built workflows for payroll, invoicing, the monthly close, marketing campaigns, lead triage, and contract review, plus 15 customizable skills you can edit to match how your business actually runs. If you've been using Claude in a chat window and copy-pasting from there, this is the version designed to take that step out.

See what's inside →

 

Snowflake Summit 2026: Making AI Real for Business

At Snowflake Summit 2026 (June 1–4), the headline wasn't a new model — it was Horizon Context, a governed layer that gives AI systems the business meaning behind data: what "revenue" or "active customer" actually means at your company, and who's allowed to see what.

Paired with its CoWork and CoCo agents, the message to enterprises was clear: AI output is only as reliable as the data definitions underneath it. If your teams define core metrics differently, that's the gap to close before scaling AI.

Read the Summit recap →

 

AI Benchmarks: How to Read the Scores

On June 9, Anthropic released Claude Fable 5 and called it state-of-the-art on nearly every benchmark it tested — and within hours, the score charts were everywhere. Charts like these are increasingly the only evidence on the table when companies choose an AI tool, but a high score only matters if the test resembles your work.

We put together a plain-language guide to what the major benchmarks measure and how to weigh them in a buying decision.

Read our benchmarks guide →

AI in Action

ChatGPT Agents Are Here

ChatGPT Agents mark a shift from AI that simply answers questions to AI that can take action. Instead of relying on back-and-forth prompts, agents can plan steps, use tools, connect to apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and the web, and produce finished work such as weekly briefings, prospect research, or competitive landscape decks.

This article explains how to build your first agent, when to use templates or the Agent Builder, and why agents are becoming a practical productivity tool across platforms.

Learn more about ChatGPT Agents 

Workflow vs. Skill

Workflow vs. Skill

When you set up an AI agent, two pieces make it useful.

A skill is the instruction sheet: a plain-text file telling the AI how to handle one recurring task — what inputs it needs, what the output should look like, which rules to follow.

A workflow strings tasks together into a bigger process — "close the month" means pull the numbers, reconcile, flag mismatches, and draft the summary.

The way to keep it straight: the connector gives the AI access to your information, the skill tells it what to do with it, and the workflow turns the steps into a finished job. 

Chatbot or agent — which one have you actually used at work so far?

Chatbot or agent — which one have you actually used at work so far?

Reply back to this email so we can gather responses and share out broad results. Don’t worry, we’ll keep your answer anonymous.
Propose a question for next month
SPECIAL INVITATION

AI Roundtable

If this issue left you curious about what more you could be doing with AI, come explore that question with us in person.

We're bringing back our AI Roundtable on Tuesday, July 28, from 8:00 to 10:30 AM at Nakoma Golf Club in Madison — same format people loved last time, but with a fresh set of use cases.

You'll get a clear, no-jargon look at where AI actually fits, walk through a few new real-world examples of it at work, and trade notes around the table with peers from a mix of industries. No technical background required — it's designed for people who'd rather AI feel approachable than impressive.

You'll walk out with a few new ideas, a read on what others are really trying, and a clearer sense of your own next step.

Seats are limited, so claim yours while there's room. → 

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