AI strategy doesn't need a 50-page deck

Most AI strategies I've seen share a common problem: they're written to impress a board, not to guide a team. They're long, abstract, and disconnected from the actual work people do every day.

Here's what a practical AI strategy looks like for a small team.

Start with pain, not possibility

Don't start with "what could AI do for us?" Start with "what's painful right now?" The best AI use cases solve problems people already have — they don't create new workflows from scratch.

Pick one thing

The fastest way to fail at AI adoption is to try everything at once. Pick one high-impact, low-risk use case. Build it. Learn from it. Then pick the next one.

Measure what matters

"We're using AI" is not a success metric. Define what success looks like before you start building. Is it time saved? Errors reduced? Revenue generated? Be specific.

The one-page version

Your AI strategy should fit on one page. If it doesn't, you're overcomplicating it. Here's the format I use:

1. The problem — what pain are we solving?
2. The approach — what are we building and why this way?
3. The metric — how do we know it's working?
4. The timeline — what do we ship in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 quarters?

That's it. Everything else is execution.