Liaison Blog
Expert insights, automation guides, and real-world strategies to help your business work smarter, not harder.
Instinct, Town and Grok Bot Are All Task Assistants. Liaison Is the Digital Version of You.
So 20VC is calling it the $100 billion race between Town, Instinct and Grok Bot, and they are all doing one job. None of them builds a context layer over your business, they rent your inbox. And Grok Bot can only ever be Grok, which is a real problem if what you are selling is an outcome.
Cade Cunningham
6 min read
AI StrategyThe Best AI for Small Business in 2026, Sorted by the Job You Need Done
So "best AI for small business" has become one of the fastest-growing searches out there this year. Here is how I would sort it: by the job you need done, with real prices and where each kind of tool stops, including ours.
AI StrategyThe Efficiency Is in Your Role, Not Your Vertical
So Avoca is booking a billion dollars of trade jobs over the phone, and that's real. But it's built for one function in one industry, and your job as the owner is every function at once. That's where the efficiency actually is, and nobody was building for it.
AI StrategyThe Interface Is Your Phone
This week we turned on something I've wanted since the beginning: you can tell Liaison to text you. It isn't a feature, it's a position on where an owner actually is, which is not in front of a screen.
AI StrategyYou Bought Ten AI Tools and You're Back to Square One
They didn't ignore AI. They tried it everywhere, and every tool took one problem and moved it into a different system. The question that runs a business still takes four tabs. There's just a chatbot in each tab now.
OperationsA Spreadsheet Column Changed Type and Almost Put 146 People Back on the Roster
Nothing in the data was wrong. A spreadsheet column was re-saved as text, our reader saw blanks, and a perfectly clean dry run was about to put 146 departed reps back on a customer's roster. Reading the delta's shape caught it.
MarketingX Published Its Ranking Code Yesterday. If You Post for Your Business, Read the Weights.
X put the For You ranking engine on GitHub. Skip the machine learning and read the file of weights: a reply is ten times a like, a copied link is forty, and one report cancels 468 likes. Five things to change.
AI StrategyThree Ways Into a Tool: An API, a Middleman, or a Login
Integrates with your tools is doing a lot of work in every AI pitch. There are exactly three ways in, they see different things, and they break differently. The door matters less than where the data lands.
AI StrategyIf You Have to Check Every Answer, You Didn't Save Any Time
78% of small business owners won't trust AI with routine work. It isn't accuracy. Answers arrive with no receipt, so the work gets redone, and the re-do costs exactly what the task always cost.
AI StrategyYou Didn't Hire These Agents. They Came With the Subscriptions.
In nine days this July, Google, Notion, Microsoft and OpenAI put agents inside software you already pay for. Nobody on your team approved any of them, and unlike a forgotten subscription, these ones act.
Professional ServicesYour Client Asked ChatGPT at Midnight. You Answered Tuesday.
Professional services firms aren't losing clients because a general model is a better accountant. They're losing the question, because the model was awake. Then they eat the cleanup unbilled.
OperationsThe Customer Who Went Quiet
Most businesses find out a customer left when the customer tells them. The signal was sitting in the invoices, the processor, the inbox and the CRM for weeks. Four rules that catch it while it's still cheap.
AI StrategyStop Being Reactive With AI
Almost everybody using AI in their business is using it reactively, and that's why it isn't changing the business. You have to think of the question. Proactive means something else does the looking while you're not there.
All posts
- The Best AI for Small Business in 2026, Sorted by the Job You Need Done
- The Efficiency Is in Your Role, Not Your Vertical
- Instinct, Town and Grok Bot Are All Task Assistants. Liaison Is the Digital Version of You.
- The Interface Is Your Phone
- You Bought Ten AI Tools and You're Back to Square One
- A Spreadsheet Column Changed Type and Almost Put 146 People Back on the Roster
- X Published Its Ranking Code Yesterday. If You Post for Your Business, Read the Weights.
- Three Ways Into a Tool: An API, a Middleman, or a Login
- If You Have to Check Every Answer, You Didn't Save Any Time
- You Didn't Hire These Agents. They Came With the Subscriptions.
- Your Client Asked ChatGPT at Midnight. You Answered Tuesday.
- The Customer Who Went Quiet
- Stop Being Reactive With AI
- Month-End Close in Hours, Not Days: The Actual Steps
- If You Pay Commission When It's Signed, You're the One Carrying the Cancel
- Can We Make Payroll Friday? The Four Numbers Behind the Answer
- Why We Stopped Building the Dashboard
- Invoiced Isn't Revenue, and Paid Isn't Cash
- The Five Numbers I'd Want Waiting for Me Monday at 8
- Your CRM and Your Books Disagree About How Many Customers You Have. Both Are Right.
- When Two Systems Disagree, Check Things in This Order
- GitHub for the Rest of the Economy
- You Don't Need Another Employee. You Need Your Tools to Talk to Each Other.
- What Happens When Your Competitor Wires AI Into Everything
- Every Platform Shipped AI Agents This Month. None of Them Talk to Each Other.
- The SaaSpocalypse Isn't About Killing SaaS
- ChatGPT Isn't a Strategy
- Your AI Agent Is Running Instructions From Strangers
- Everyone Shipped AI Agents This Week. They All Missed the Point.
- The AI Orchestration Layer Is Here. SMBs Just Can't Access It Yet.
- Agentic AI Was Built for Enterprise. Here's What SMBs Actually Need.
- 14 Fields Named "Status" and None of Them Have What You Need
- Why Your AI Investment Is Failing (It's Not the AI)
- Stop Building More Automations
- 14 Apps by Friday: The New Hire Onboarding Tax
- Every App Switch Costs You 23 Minutes. Here's What to Do About It.
- Single Source of Truth Without Migration: The Foundational Layer Approach
- You're Paying for 42 Apps. You're Using Maybe Half.
- Context Graphs and World Models. How to Build One That Actually Learns.
- LLMs and Agents Are Commodities. Your Moat Is Somewhere Else.
- How to Eliminate Data Silos in Your Small Business (Without an ERP)
- Automation ROI Calculator: How to Calculate If Automation Is Worth It
- How to Streamline Small Business Operations (Complete Guide)
- 7 Best Zapier Alternatives for Small Business (2025)
- How to Connect QuickBooks to Your CRM (And Stop Double Entry)
- n8n Alternative: Liaison vs n8n for Business Automation
- How to See All Your Business Data in One Dashboard
- How to Build a KPI Dashboard for Your Small Business (Without Spreadsheets)
- "Never Hire a Human Again"... Umm, No.
- Why 2026 Won't Be the Year of AI Consultants (And What Comes Instead)
- The AI Agency Trap: Why Consultants Want You to Think AI Is Harder Than It Is
- The Rise of the AI COO: How Smart Dashboards Are Replacing Manual Operations for SMBs in 2025
- ChatGPT Can't Learn Your Business. Here's What Can.
- Agentic AI for Small Business: The Complete 2025 Guide to AI That Actually Works
- AI Agent Pricing in 2025: What Small Businesses Actually Pay
- The Hidden Cost of Tool Sprawl: How SMBs Waste $100,000/Year on Disconnected Software
- 55 Customer Interviews Revealed a $50B Market Hiding in Plain Sight
- The Hidden Cost of Disconnected Tools: How SMBs Lose $50K Yearly to Operational Chaos
- Ship Features 2X Faster: How SaaS Teams Automate 150+ Hours of Dev Operations Monthly
- Professional Services Automation: Recover 120+ Hours/Month from Admin Work
- Home Services Scheduling Automation: Stop Losing $500/Day to Missed Calls
- E-commerce Workflow Automation: The ROI Guide for SMB Leaders
- Real Estate Lead Management & Automation: Stop Losing $30K/Month to Slow Follow-Up
- Make.com Alternative for SMBs: Automation Without the Complexity (2025)
- Power BI Alternative for Small Business: Dashboards Without the Complexity
- No-Code AI Platforms: How Small Businesses Can Automate Without Developers
- The Best Zapier Alternative for Small Businesses (2025 Comparison)
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