Getting more value from AI starts with a clear business problem, a review of the tools you already have, and a plan for how employees will use them. Before adding another subscription, identify the work you want to improve and what a useful result would look like.

That was a central theme of Josh Krueger’s conversation with Ben Mitzelfelt on Hero Trust, an Integrity Technology Solutions podcast. As Integrity’s chief technology officer and co-owner, Josh sees business leaders trying to balance enthusiasm for AI with questions about cost, company data, and practical value.

His advice gives leaders a useful place to start: connect AI decisions to the work your business needs to get done.

What business problem are you trying to solve

“We want to use AI” is the beginning of a conversation. The next question is where your team needs help.

Are employees spending hours finding information? Does someone rebuild the same report every month? Is preparing for a client meeting taking time away from the client relationship? Those are specific problems you can evaluate.

“You really need to be thinking about what problems am I trying to solve first within my business and what tools can I apply to that.” — Josh Krueger

Josh’s point is that AI belongs in the same business conversation as any other technology investment. You need a purpose, an expected benefit, and a way to decide whether the tool is helping.

For example, a pilot might focus on reducing the time it takes to prepare a weekly operations summary. Start with how the work happens today, test an approved tool, and compare the time required and the quality of the result. That gives you something concrete to discuss before expanding access.

Could the tools you already have do the job?

In the conversation, Josh encourages organizations to evaluate the AI capabilities available through their existing technology investments. For businesses using Microsoft 365, that includes discussing where Copilot might fit.

The useful question is what your employees need to accomplish with the information they use every day. Finding an old conversation, summarizing documents, and preparing a first draft are different tasks from building software or working with a specialized application.

Where your data lives matters, too. Josh discusses how information stored in Microsoft 365, on local systems, or inside business applications can lead to different choices. Your technology advisor can help you evaluate the available options and the access each would require.

“But you really have to look at what problems are you trying to solve and where is your data so you can find the right AI solutions that’ll help you.” — Josh Krueger

If an earlier trial was disappointing, Josh also suggests taking another look. He describes how his own use of Copilot in Excel changed as its capabilities improved. An old impression is a reason to retest a relevant task before making a new purchase decision.

Do you know how employees are already using AI?

A leadership team may still be discussing an AI strategy while employees are already experimenting on their own. Josh identifies that gap as an important starting point.

He describes shadow AI as tools being used outside the organization’s visibility and governance. The immediate questions are practical:

• Which tools are people using?

• Are they using personal or company accounts?

• What information are they putting into them?

That review should help you understand both the work employees want to improve and where they need clearer direction. An employee using an unapproved tool to summarize documents may be showing you a real workflow need.

“If you give people the tools and you make it easy, you’re gonna have less likelihood of people going off on their own and trying to do things that might be outside your policy, whether they realize that or not.” — Josh Krueger

An approved tool, clear expectations, and practical training give employees a place to start. Include examples of appropriate tasks and explain which information they may use.

How will you know whether the spending is worthwhile?

Josh also encourages leaders to distinguish predictable subscription expenses from charges that vary with usage. A budget discussion needs to account for both where they apply.

Just as important, employees need to understand how their use affects spending. Josh recommends sharing usage information with the people doing the work so they can connect the cost to the result.

“But when you see what the actual costs are for it, you get to make a decision: is the value there?” — Josh Krueger

A higher bill deserves a conversation about what the team accomplished. Did it replace hours of repetitive work? Did the output require extensive correction? Could an existing tool have completed the task?

Use those answers to refine the pilot and discuss appropriate spending controls with your advisor. The goal is to make useful work repeatable at a cost the business understands.

How can you help employees get consistent results

Providing access is only part of adoption. Employees also need guidance on how to use the tools well.

Josh discusses sharing reusable instructions, or skills, across a team. He describes the value of taking a prompt that someone has refined and making that starting point available to others.

“Now every team member can benefit from that skill and that knowledge.” — Josh Krueger

For a business, that could mean developing a consistent approach to preparing meeting briefs, reviewing documents, or producing an internal summary. Employees can build on an established example rather than each working out the process independently.

Include review expectations in that process. Josh stresses asking for supporting evidence when an answer is questionable. Checking the output against the source material remains part of the work.

Where should your business start?

Start by asking your team what AI tools they use today and which recurring tasks they want help completing. Then choose one useful task to evaluate with your technology advisor or strategic business advisor.

Agree on the information the tool can use, who will test it, how the results will be reviewed, and what success should look like. That creates a practical basis for deciding what to expand, what to change, and whether another purchase is justified.

Watch the full Hero Trust conversation for more of Josh’s perspective on AI adoption. If you’re ready to evaluate what makes sense for your organization, talk with your Integrity technology advisor or strategic business advisor about a focused first step.