5 AI Tools a Lubbock Small Business Can Actually Use This Month

By Chase Powell · · AI for Local Business

Every week somebody asks me some version of the same question: "Chase, what AI should I be using?"

Usually they've just seen a video of someone building an entire company with a chatbot over a weekend. They run an HVAC company, a dental office or a title company in Lubbock, and they're wondering if they've already missed the boat.

You haven't. Most businesses haven't started yet.

Most small businesses are still on the sidelines

The U.S. Census Bureau tracks this in its Business Trends and Outlook Survey. In a May 2026 write-up of that data, the Census Bureau reported that national AI use among businesses held between 17% and 20% from December 2025 through early May 2026. Among firms with four or fewer employees, fewer than 20% said they were using AI. The big firms were further along: about 37% of companies with 250 or more employees.

So if you're a small shop and you haven't figured out AI yet, you're in the majority. That's the good news. The other news is that the gap between the businesses that use it well and the ones that don't is going to widen, and the tools are already cheap enough that cost isn't the real barrier. Knowing where to start is.

Here are five places I'd start. None of them require a developer, and you can get value from each one this month.

1. A general AI assistant for the writing you keep putting off

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot all do roughly the same core job well: turning your rough notes into clean writing. Most have a free version, and the paid tiers are usually about the cost of a lunch a week.

Where it helps a local business right away:

  • Estimate follow-up emails. Paste in your bullet points, ask for a short, friendly email in plain English.
  • Job postings. Describe the role the way you'd explain it to a friend, then have it write the posting.
  • Policies and checklists. Opening and closing procedures, a new-hire checklist, a how-we-handle-callbacks page.
  • Hard conversations. A price increase letter, a reply to an upset customer, a note to a vendor who keeps missing deliveries.

Two rules. First, don't paste in anything you wouldn't want on a postcard: no customer Social Security numbers, card numbers or patient details. Second, read every word before it goes out. These tools write confidently even when they're wrong.

2. The AI already inside the software you pay for

Before you buy anything new, check what you already own.

In January 2025, Google announced it was including its Gemini AI features in Google Workspace Business and Enterprise plans. If your business email runs on Google, you may already have AI that can draft replies in Gmail, summarize long email threads and help write documents. Microsoft has been building Copilot into its tools the same way, and plenty of CRMs, phone systems and accounting programs have added AI features too.

A lot of owners are paying for these and never turned them on. Spend 30 minutes this week logging into your admin settings for email, your CRM and your phone system and writing down what AI features are available. It's the cheapest AI you'll ever get, because you've already bought it.

3. An AI note-taker for calls and meetings

If you do consultations, walk-throughs, sales calls or weekly team meetings on Zoom, Google Meet or Teams, look at the built-in AI notes features. Many plans can now produce a summary and a list of action items after a meeting.

For a contractor or a professional office, that means:

  • A written record of what the customer actually asked for.
  • Follow-up tasks you don't have to remember on the drive back down 19th Street.
  • Notes you can paste straight into the customer's record in your CRM.

Always tell people when a meeting is being recorded or transcribed, and follow whatever consent rules apply to your industry. If you're unsure, ask your attorney. I'm not one.

4. AI help with your Google reviews

Responding to reviews matters, both for the next customer reading them and for how you show up in search and AI answers. (I covered that in How Lubbock Businesses Show Up in ChatGPT and Google's AI Answers.) But most owners fall months behind because writing replies feels like homework.

Use your AI assistant to draft them. Give it the review and a little context: "Customer had a roof replaced after the spring hail, crew was Daniel's, she mentioned the cleanup." Ask for a short, warm reply that thanks them by name and mentions the specific work. Then edit it so it sounds like you.

For negative reviews, have the AI help you cool down, not fire back. Ask it for a calm, professional reply that acknowledges the issue and invites them to call you directly.

What not to do: never use AI to write fake reviews or post reviews for yourself. It's dishonest, it violates Google's policies, and the FTC has rules against fake reviews.

5. An AI first response for new leads

This is where AI starts paying for itself in a way you can measure.

When someone fills out your form at 9 p.m. or calls while you're on a job, an AI assistant connected to your CRM can reply in seconds, answer simple questions about hours and service area, collect the details you need and offer appointment times. When the AC dies in a West Texas July, the business that answers first usually gets the call.

I'd build this in two steps:

  1. Start simple. An automatic text when you miss a call and an instant confirmation when a form comes in. I walked through that in Missed-Call Text-Back: The Cheapest Fix in Local Marketing.
  2. Then add AI. Once you know replies are landing in one inbox and someone owns them, let AI handle the first few back-and-forth messages and hand off to a person for anything that matters.

The AI should be honest that it's an assistant, and it should never quote a firm price or promise something your team can't deliver.

How to choose without wasting money

A few filters I use with clients:

  • Start with a problem, not a tool. "We're slow to follow up on estimates" is a problem. "We need AI" isn't.
  • Pick one thing. Try one tool for 30 days before adding another.
  • Name an owner. Someone on your team is responsible for using it and reporting back.
  • Measure something simple. Hours saved per week, reviews answered, time to first response. If you can't point to a change after a month, drop it.
  • Watch the monthly bills. AI subscriptions pile up the same way software subscriptions always have.

What to do this week

  1. Sign up for one general AI assistant and use it for three real tasks: an email, a job posting and a review reply.
  2. Check your email, CRM and phone system for AI features you're already paying for.
  3. Turn on AI meeting notes for your next customer or team call, and tell everyone on the call.
  4. Answer your last ten Google reviews with AI drafts you edit yourself.
  5. Fill out your own website form after hours and see how long it takes to hear back. That tells you whether tool number five should be next.

None of this is about replacing your people. It's about taking the repetitive work off their plates so they can spend more time with customers. That's always been the point of good process, AI or not.

Not sure which of these fits your business first? Our MarketTap Blueprint looks at your follow-up, your market and your marketing and gives you a prioritized plan. Or book a strategy call and we'll talk through where AI can actually save you time.

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