AI Enablement
Your team already uses AI. Your leadership team just needs to lead it.
Most small businesses have started using AI somewhere. But very few have a leader who’s confident guiding it, or the governance in place to keep it safe. Our senior leaders have been helping businesses navigate technology adoption for many decades. Use their expertise to strengthen your path.
Goldman Sachs / Babson College
Goldman Sachs / Babson College
Teal
Teal
Teal
Where are you now?
Pick the stage that sounds like your business
Each stage fails in a predictable way. Here's what we usually find, and what to do next.
Stage 01
Experimenting
People are using free tools on their own accounts.
Stage 02
Piloting
A team or two has licensed tools and is testing them.
Stage 03
Standardizing
Tools are approved and rolling out across teams.
Stage 04
Automating
Workflows are running.
What we usually find at this stage
- Nobody can say which tools are in use, or what company data has been pasted into them
- Work is happening in personal accounts, outside anything you can control
- No written policy, so there is nothing to point to when something goes wrong
Your next step
Inventory what is already in use, then write or adapt a basic AI use policy.
In the guide
Crawl (months 1–3) · Responsible AI Governance: the four pillars
The guide walks through the data inventory and the policy templates it adapts from — NIST AI RMF and NTEN’s GenAI Use Policy — plus the seven risk categories to document.
What we usually find at this stage
- Licenses were bought before the use case was defined, so your workflows aren’t producing the business outcomes you were expecting
- Permissions are much wider than anyone realizes — in Microsoft 365, your file shares, your CRM — so your AI tool(s) surface data people shouldn’t have access to
- No baseline, so there is no way to prove the pilot worked
Your next step
Match the tool to the job, tighten permissions, and set a baseline before you expand adoption.
In the guide
The AI Toolbox: What’s available in 2026 · Vendor vetting
The guide compares Copilot, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity on data handling and compliance posture, and lists the vendor questions to ask before the next group of users gets access.
What we usually find at this stage
- A training program either never started, or you had one training event with nothing ongoing — so nobody is continually learning the job-specific skills they need to get the most from the tool
- Adoption drops off a few weeks after rollout
- A policy exists, but nobody owns enforcing it
- Every department is building its own prompts and workflows in isolation
Your next step
Name an owner, run structured onboarding by job function, and start measuring time saved.
In the guide
Walk (months 3–9) · What AI can do for your team right now
The guide maps the highest-value applications department by department — sales, marketing, HR, operations, finance — so training builds on job-specific skills that employees need.
What we usually find at this stage
- No monitoring or rollback plan for when an automated workflow misfires
- Decisions made by an agent are not logged in a way an auditor would accept
- Accountability for automated output is unassigned
- Agent spend doesn’t have a cap, so costs move without anyone paying attention
Your next step
Put human-review checkpoints, logging, and spend caps on every agent workflow.
In the guide
Run (month 9+) · Beyond the chatbot: how AI agents work
The guide covers how agents execute multi-step work, what Copilot credits cost per task, and the advanced readiness checklist auditors and boards will ask about.
Free Resource
Get the AI adoption guide for regulated businesses, nonprofits, and associations.
Don’t get stuck investing in the wrong approaches when getting it right can pay you back tenfold.
Microsoft Copilot Cowork (Frontier) vs Copilot Chat
See how Microsoft Copilot Cowork goes well beyond chat by running autonomous, scheduled tasks across M365.
ChatGPT, Cybersecurity & Business Email Compromise
See how cybercriminals use AI tools, like WormGPT, to craft very convincing phishing and business email attacks.
How to Use AI for Tough Business Decisions
If you don’t fully trust the answers AI gives you, your skepticism is likely well-earned. Explore a new approach to make AI challenge your decisions.
Claude vs. Copilot vs. ChatGPT: How to Pick the Right AI Tool
Teal senior advisor and cofounder, Reid Johnston, breaks down how to choose the right AI tool and the question you need to ask before picking any of them.
Explore more articles about AI and automation.
AI may be a part of your business operations, but are you set up to benefit from it?
Teal can lead the adoption so you don’t have to stress over who to hire, what tools or workflows you need. Once you make the choice to hire us, our Chief Intelligent Transformation Officer will walk you through the process, making it easy to achieve the levels of security, productivity, and growth you desire.
WHO YOU'D BE WORKING WITH
Teal Senior AI & Automation Engineering Advisor
- 25+ Years supporting regulated industries
- CMMC Level 2 certified
- CompTIA Trustmark+
- One of the first 62 RPOs in the country
Reid Johnston
Cofounder & Chief Intelligent Transformation Officer
Provides AI consulting on security and governance guardrails, adoption paths, tool selection, workflow integration, agent-building guidance, employee training, and more.