Frequently asked questions

AI consulting for small business owners, explained.

Bring us a process that takes too long, costs too much, or keeps breaking. We will tell you whether an existing tool, a custom system, or no AI is the right answer. Our first paid offer costs $995. An AI Audit takes two weeks.

Getting started

How can AI help me run my small business?

AI is useful when your team repeats the same steps every week or when work breaks between systems. We have built a local pipeline that turns intake PDFs and clinical photos into patient PowerPoint presentations. We have also built an integration that posts routine ACH payments into Dentrix and stops uncertain cases for staff. We start by finding one process where a change like that would save time, cut a cost, or prevent an error.

How do I know if my business is ready for AI?

Your business is ready when you can point to one repeated process, name the person responsible for it, show us the inputs, and define a correct result. You should also know what the process costs in staff time, delays, errors, fees, or missed revenue. If the process changes every time or nobody owns the outcome, define the process before adding AI. Our free ten-question diagnostic checks those conditions in about two minutes.

What should I automate first?

Start with work that happens often, follows recognizable rules, and produces a result someone can check. Good candidates include copying the same fields between systems, rebuilding the same report or presentation, and sorting routine requests. Leave hiring, clinical decisions, account approval, and any task that requires the system to guess about a person with your team.

Should I buy an AI tool or build a custom system?

Buy when one product can handle the task without changing the rest of your workflow. Build when the work crosses systems, depends on rules specific to your business, or needs a data boundary and exception handling that an existing product does not provide. We test the buy option first because it costs less and can be put to work sooner. Our free AI Finder asks four questions and returns existing tools that fit, including the limitation of each.

Cost and risk

How much does AI consulting cost for a small business?

Buy Your Time Back costs $995. You pay only after we confirm your business is a fit. An AI Audit has a fixed two-week scope, but we do not publish one flat price for every company. Custom systems and ongoing partnerships are priced after we know the process, the software involved, the data boundary, and the people responsible for review. You receive the written scope, schedule, and price before work starts.

What do I get for $995?

Buy Your Time Back is designed for owner-led service businesses with roughly 5 to 25 employees. We spend 45 minutes learning what your team handles in a normal week, identify the bottlenecks, choose existing tools that fit your constraints, and help your team use them. You receive your 5-Hour Path in about one week.

We then verify the time returned. If your team does not recover five hours in a normal week after the agreed test and one adjustment, we refund the fee. Five hours means total team time after review, correction, maintenance, oversight, and exception work. It does not mean five hours for every employee.

Will AI replace anyone on my team?

No. We build systems that remove repeated steps from a role while keeping accountability with a person. In our dental payment integration, the system retrieves a cleared ACH payment, matches it to a local account, posts it in Dentrix, and reads the ledger back. If the match is uncertain or the read-back fails, it stops and sends the case to staff. Your team remains responsible for the exceptions and final decisions.

What happens to my business data?

We document what data enters the system, where it is processed, what may cross a cloud boundary, how long working files remain, and where a person must review the work. In our dental payment integration, the cloud receives no patient identity. Patient matching and Dentrix posting stay on the clinic workstation. In our patient presentation system, patient files, extracted fields, images, and working files stay local and are removed after delivery or cleanup. The written data boundary ships with the system.

How an engagement works

Do I have to replace the software I already use?

No. We start with the software already in your workflow and replace it only when it cannot support the required change. One dental practice moved recurring payments to ACH while keeping Dentrix. A clinic-side service matches each payment, posts it through the existing Dentrix interface, and reads the ledger back to confirm the result. A software migration would be scoped as a separate project.

What do I receive from an AI Audit?

An AI Audit is a two-week review of how your business runs. We examine financial records, process documents, team knowledge, and system activity. For each opportunity, we estimate the economic value, confirm access to the required systems and data, identify what happens if the system is wrong, and name the person who would own the result. You receive a ranked plan that says what to start now, what comes next, what to defer, and what not to pursue.

How long before something is working?

Buy Your Time Back produces the initial 5-Hour Path in about one week. An AI Audit takes two weeks. A custom AI system does not have a standard timeline. We map one process and agree on its schedule in writing before building. The schedule depends on the number of systems involved, access to those systems, the data requirements, and the review steps that remain with your team.

When does an ongoing AI Partnership make sense?

AI Partnership is a flexible retainer for owners who have more than one AI project to run and need regular help choosing, building, training, and reviewing. In each cycle, you choose one priority and name the owner. We move one system into use, train the people responsible for it, review what happened in real work, and correct the system before choosing the next priority. Every system keeps a named owner, review point, and exception path.

What happens on the first call?

The baseline call is free and lasts fifteen minutes. Bring one process and tell us who owns it, how it works, where it slows down, and what software it touches. We ask enough to decide whether the next step is Buy Your Time Back, an AI Audit, a custom system, or no engagement. You do not need to arrive with an AI use case.

About Prometheus

What types of small businesses do you work with?

We have worked with small and mid-sized businesses in healthcare, aviation, financial services, hospitality, entertainment, and professional services. Our published work is narrower: a dental payment integration running in production, a local patient presentation system, and an AI-enablement engagement with a semi-private airline. Every engagement still needs a repeated process with a measurable cost and a person who owns the result.

Tell us what should work better.

Describe one process: who handles it, how often it runs, what software it touches, and where it slows down. The baseline call is free and lasts fifteen minutes. We will tell you what we would examine first and whether you need us at all.

Take the ten questions