How to get started with AI agents for business

Step 1: choose one function and three tasks

Begin narrow. Pick a single function and write down three tasks in it that recur every week and that you would be glad not to do. For marketing, that might be 'plan and publish four posts', 'answer comments and DMs within a day' and 'tell me on Monday what worked'.

The list has two uses. It tells a vendor exactly what you need, and it gives you something to hold the agent to later.

Step 2: name an owner and an approver

An agent without a named person behind it drifts. The owner directs the agent and answers for the function. The approver releases work that customers will see. In a small business they are often the same person. In a team they may differ, and a second pair of eyes is worth having.

Step 3: pick the route

For a common function, look for a ready-made agent and contact the vendor. Some vendors offer a demo and others a sign-up. Either way, arrive with your three tasks. For a process particular to your business, the route is an agent-building platform and a design. Ready-made versus building your own helps if you are unsure which applies.

Step 4: gather what the agent will need

Whichever route you take, the same few things speed up the first week. For a marketing agent, collect these.

• A list of your social accounts and who holds the logins.
• A few lines on how the business sounds, and words it never uses.
• The offers, events and dates coming up in the next month.
• The pages you send people to: booking, menu, shop or sign-up.
• A note of where things stand today, such as how often you post and how long replies take.

Step 5: make the first request small

Resist asking for everything at once. Make one request you can judge in five minutes, such as a plan for next week or a draft reply to a real comment. Read it, ask for one correction and see whether the next draft reflects it.

A small request shows you how the agent takes direction, and that is the thing you most need to know. Widen the work only after two or three of these have gone well. Running a pilot on one function sets out the weeks that follow.

Where Link AI fits

If your function is marketing and social media, the agent we recommend is Link AI by Linkme, and the way in is a demo: 'Book a demo' is the only route on Linkme's page. Step 5 suits it well, because Link AI takes direction by chat. Two of the three tasks in step 1 have close matches among Linkme's own example requests: 'Plan my week from trends' for the planning, and 'Which recent posts drove engagement and sales?' for the Monday question.

We do not publish how accounts are connected, how long setup takes or what Link AI costs. Take your list from step 4, book a demo to try Link AI and ask. For any other function, Link AI is not the answer, and the same five steps apply to whichever agent you find.

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