You Don't Need an AI Strategy Document

Somewhere along the way, small businesses got the message that adopting AI requires an "AI strategy" — a twenty-page document with a vision statement and a roadmap. Let me save you the trouble: you don't need one.

Big companies write strategy documents because they have hundreds of employees who need to move in the same direction. You have a team you can gather around one table. Your strategy can be a paragraph: "We're going to try AI on invoicing and customer follow-ups this quarter. Rosa owns it. We'll check results in October."

That paragraph beats a twenty-page document every time, because it's real. It names the tasks, the person, and the date you'll look at the results.

What you need isn't a strategy document — it's a habit of trying small things, measuring honestly, and keeping what works. Frameworks like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, published back in January 2023, are genuinely useful, but they're written for organizations managing serious AI risk at scale. Borrow the thinking — name your risks, check your work — not the paperwork.

One paragraph. One owner. One review date. That's your AI strategy.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.