Three Phases of Growing Your AI Use
This is a member-only chapter. Log in with your Signal Over Noise membership email to continue.
Log in to readModule 6 · Section 5 of 8
Three Phases of Growing Your AI Use
Phase 1: Solo Mastery
- Pick one workflow and get genuinely good at it with AI
- Iterate until the quality is consistent and you trust the output
- Document what you’re doing as you go — not as a separate project, but notes on what works and what doesn’t
- This is where most of the value lives. Don’t rush past it.
Phase 2: Sharing What Works
- You’ve hired a VA, contractor, or first team member
- Write down your workflow — not just the steps, but the judgment calls
- Start with your most standardised process (the one with fewest edge cases)
- Sit with them the first few times. Watch where they stumble. That’s what your documentation is missing.
- Keep the tools simple. If they need a training session longer than 30 minutes, the setup is too complex.
Phase 3: Small Team Standards
- Multiple people are now using AI in your business
- Create shared prompt libraries and templates
- Establish quality standards everyone understands (your Content Classification from Chapter 5)
- Run a monthly “show and tell” — what’s working, what isn’t, what have people discovered
- Resist the urge to build an elaborate system. The best small-team AI setups look boringly simple.
The research confirms it: AI leaders pursue half as many opportunities but scale more than twice as many successfully. Whether you’re an enterprise or a three-person team, depth beats breadth.