Before You Buy Another AI Tool, Answer This One Question
Owners who succeed with implementing AI first define a clear position on how AI fits into their operations, and share the thesis openly with their team.
An AI Moment for the Trades
The trades are having an AI moment. Call handling, scheduling, dispatch optimization, customer follow-up. Every week there’s a new tool promising to save time, cut costs, or transform your business.
And a lot of owners are buying. Fast.
We talk to owners in the trades every week. And the pattern is the same: companies bolting on AI tools without ever stepping back to ask a simple question, what is our position on AI?
Not which vendor. Not which feature.
- What role does AI play in this business, what will it touch, what won’t it touch, and what does that mean for our people?
This question is what we propose as your AI thesis. And if you don’t have one, you’re not adopting AI. You’re simply buying software.
The concept isn't new. Take BCG as an example: no client engagement starts without a thesis. Before any recommendation, before any analysis, you define your position. What's the hypothesis? What are we solving for? That discipline is what's missing from most AI adoption in the trades right now.
Strategy Before Software
Most owners in the trades fall into one of two camps right now. They’re either ignoring AI entirely, waiting to see how things shake out, or they’re in full reaction mode, grabbing tools because a competitor did or because a sales rep made a compelling demo.
Neither approach works long-term.
- We talked to an owner running a 40-tech plumbing and HVAC operation who’d signed up for an AI call handler, an AI dispatch optimizer, and an AI follow-up tool, all in the same quarter (with different providers). None of the tools shared data, the CSRs didn’t trust the call handler because nobody explained how it worked, and the dispatch tool was overriding decisions his best managers had been making for years. He wasn’t saving time. Instead, he was spending weekends putting out fires his “automation” created.
On the other hand, the owners we see getting this right are doing something different. They’re pausing before they purchase. They’re defining a clear, simple position on how AI fits into their day-to-day operations. And perhaps most importantly, they’re sharing that position openly with their team.
That’s it. That’s the whole framework. Have a thesis. Communicate it (and who you communicate it to matters).
Why a Thesis Changes Everything
When leadership doesn’t define a position on AI, the team fills in the blanks themselves. Most of the time, what they fill in is fear. Am I being replaced? Is my job going away? Why is nobody telling me what’s going on? That fear is valid and worth taking seriously.
- When Golden Rule rolled out AI-assisted call handling at one of our locations, we didn’t lead with the thesis first, and it cost us. One of our strongest CSRs came to her manager convinced she was being phased out. She’d seen the software on the schedule and assumed it was her replacement.
But the truth was quite the opposite: we were deploying it to catch after-hours and overflow calls she’d been stressing about missing. Once we sat her down, explained the why, and showed her that her role was actually getting bigger, not smaller, she became one of the tool’s strongest advocates. We could have avoided the whole thing with a ten minute conversation upfront.
That fear can create resistance, which in turn, slows adoption. It erodes trust between ownership and the people doing the work. And in the trades, where retention is already hard and relationships are everything, that erosion is expensive.
A thesis flips the dynamic. When you can stand in front of your team and say, “Here’s how we’re going to use AI, here’s what it won’t replace, and here’s what it means for your role,” you’re not just deploying technology. Rather, you’re building alignment.
People don’t resist change when they understand it. Resistance often stems from lack of an explanation, from lack of communication about what’s happening to them.
A Thesis Protects the Leader, Too
A thesis isn’t just an internal communication tool. It’s a forcing function. When you sit down to articulate your position on AI, you have to think through things you might otherwise skip. You are asking the ethical questions, scrutinizing your legal exposure, and the practical implications for how your customers experience your business.
We know that the trades are all about relationships. Your customers call because they trust you, your business, your people. AI should amplify human connection. It should amplify that trust, not undermine it. A thesis makes that boundary explicit for your team, for your customers, and for every vendor who walks through the door with a pitch.
Without a thesis, you’re evaluating tools in a vacuum. With one, you are equipped with a filter.
Does this tool align with our position? Does it serve the role we’ve defined for AI in this business? If not, it’s a pass, no matter how good the demo looks.
What a Good Thesis Looks Like
A good thesis doesn’t need to be a 20-page document. It doesn’t need legal review. It needs to be honest, clear, and shared openly.
- One example is: “We use AI to handle routine tasks so our team can spend more time with customers. AI will not replace any role in this company. It will make every role more effective.”
- At Golden Rule, ours is straightforward: “We are excited about using AI to make things easier, faster, and better for both our customers and our team. Our approach is all about being responsible, ethical, and transparent, while staying true to our core values.”
- What this means in practice: Every new tool gets measured against that. Can we tie its benefit to a KPI? Can we make weekly decisions in the first 90 days to persevere, pivot, or punt? If the answer is no, it’s not ready. We discuss this openly in our monthly all-hands and again in every team meeting where we’re piloting something new—always with the people who will be using it day to day in the room.
Two sentences. That’s a thesis. And every person in your organization can repeat it, understand it, and measure decisions against it.
The Talent Angle
Here’s one more reason this matters: the companies that define their AI thesis early are going to attract and retain better people. Talent in the trades is hard to find. When a technician or a CSR is choosing between two employers, the one that’s been transparent about how technology fits into the business, and what it means for their future, wins. Every time.
People want to work somewhere that respects them enough to be direct. A thesis is how you show that respect.
The Middle Ground
You don’t have to ignore AI. You don’t have to chase after every new tool. There’s a middle ground: be intentional, define your position, and bring your people along with you.
The owners who do this now won’t just adopt AI more effectively. They’ll build stronger, more resilient businesses in the process.
Start with the thesis. Everything else follows.
