Field notes from the trenches
AI for Central Florida small business — without the hype.
Plain-English writeups on tools, vendor selection, and real implementation stories from Orlando-area businesses. Skim a category, click anything that matters to you, and email me if you want a real opinion.
Why I Still Do the First AI Audit Myself
<i>I've tried handing off the first audit to a junior or a tool. Every time, I missed the real story. Here's what I catch in the first hour that no software ever will.</i> Last year, I…
What Clients Actually Ask Me at the Coffee Shop
<i>I meet business owners across Central Florida—Maitland, Lake Nona, Winter Park—and after the small talk, they lean in and ask the same…
Three Years of AI Consulting in Orlando: What I Actually Learned
<i>After three years of helping Central Florida small businesses adopt AI, I’ve learned what works, what doesn’t, and why most advice you…
The AI Tool I Oversold: A Confession
<i>I once told a client an AI tool would solve all their problems. It didn't. Here's what I learned about honesty, trust,…
The Dumbest AI Mistake Orlando Owners Make
*I’ve watched dozens of Central Florida business owners fall for the same shiny AI trap. It costs them time, money, and credibility.…
The Client I Turned Away and Why
<i>I walked away from a $15,000 AI project because it would have hurt the client more than helped. Here’s the story, the…
The AI Project I Botched and What It Cost Me
<i>I once sold an AI voice agent to a Maitland plumbing company that failed spectacularly—costing me $4,500 and the client 60 missed…
I Was Wrong About AI Chatbots for Small Business
<i>I spent years telling small business owners to avoid chatbots. Then a plumbing company in Winter Park proved me wrong. Here's what…
How We Tamed 600 Daily Emails for a Downtown Orlando Firm
*A professional-services firm in downtown Orlando was buried under 600 emails a day. We built an AI triage system that auto-classified, extracted…
How We Trained a Custom GPT for a Mills 50 Agency’s Brand Voice
<i>A small marketing shop in Orlando’s Mills 50 district was drowning in rewrites. We built a custom GPT that finally made junior…
How We Built a SOAP Note Pipeline for a Lake Nona PT Clinic
<i>An anonymized case study of a Lake Nona physical therapy clinic that used Whisper transcription and a custom LLM pipeline to turn…
How We Scored Roof Damage From Drone Photos for an Apopka Roofer
<i>An anonymized case study: how we built a computer-vision tool to pre-score roof damage from drone photos for a roofing contractor in…
How We Merged 80,000 HVAC Customer Records in Maitland
<i>An anonymized case study: we helped a Maitland HVAC company clean up 80,000 customer records using AI embeddings, fuzzy matching, and smart…
How We Built a Clinic Chatbot That Handles 70% of Front-Desk Calls
<i>A multi-provider clinic in Baldwin Park was drowning in routine phone calls. We built a knowledge-base chatbot that answers most questions on…
How We Forecasted Snowbird Demand for a Mount Dora Retailer
<i>A Central Florida specialty retailer was drowning in seasonal guesswork. We built a practical AI model that cut dead inventory by 40%…
How We Built a Permit-Data Pipeline for a DeLand Contractor
*We helped a DeLand general contractor stop digging through filing cabinets by building a document-extraction pipeline that reads scanned permits and inspection…
How We Deployed Vision Inspection for a Melbourne Machine Shop
*An anonymized case study: how we built a computer-vision quality-inspection assist for an aerospace machine shop in Melbourne — flagging surface defects…
How We Deployed an After-Hours AI Voice Agent for a Sanford Plumbing Company
<i>An anonymized case study: how we stood up an AI voice agent for a three-truck plumbing company in Sanford that books real…
How We Cut Quote Time for a Clermont Pool Screen Builder
<i>An anonymized case study: how we fine-tuned an estimate assistant on five years of past bids for a pool-screen and rescreen builder…
How We Cut No-Shows for a Windermere Med Spa Without Overbooking Blindly
<i>An anonymized case study of how we built a no-show prediction and smart-overbooking model for a med spa in Windermere — the…
How We Built Semantic Parts Search for an Orlando Distributor
<i>A 200,000-SKU catalog, counter staff who knew parts by feel, and a search that finally understood “the thingy that goes on the…
How We Built AI Case Search for a Winter Park Law Firm
*A boutique firm's old paper-and-folder workflow became searchable, cited answers in weeks—not months.* (Client details are anonymized and some specifics composited at…
How We Built a Slack Bot for a UCF Research Park Startup
<i>An anonymized case study of a fast-growing startup in Orlando's UCF Research Park: we built a Slack bot grounded in their messy…
How We Built a Lead-Scoring Model for a Mortgage Broker in Altamonte Springs
<i>An anonymized case study: how we combined CRM history and website clickstream data to predict which leads would close, why we ran…
How We Built a Bilingual Support Workflow for a Kissimmee Property Manager
<i>An anonymized case study: We built a real-time English-Spanish-Portuguese support workflow for a vacation-rental property manager in Kissimmee. The system handled 80%…
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