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AI, automation and process design

Everyone is selling you AI. I will tell you if you actually need it

Three working tools below map where automation would honestly pay in your business. Whatever you build rides along when you write to me, and I reply personally with a straight read. If the honest answer is that you need nothing, that is the answer you will get.

Start with the task eating your week

Pick one and it drops you straight into the six questions.

Tool 1 of 3

Map your tasks on the automation grid

Pick a task that eats your week, answer six quick questions, and it lands on the grid. How often it happens sets one axis, how much judgment it needs sets the other, and the quadrant tells you what to do about it.

Pick a task, or add your own
KEEP HUMAN AI-ASSIST SYSTEMISE AUTOMATE NOW How often it happens → Judgment it needs →
Your tasks

Nothing plotted yet. Pick a task above and answer the six questions.

Next: price this work ↓
Tool 2 of 3

Price the manual work

Automation is a cost question, not a fashion question. Put a number on what doing it by hand costs you in a year.

$13,200 a year
Typically $5,300 to $9,200 of that is recoverable through automation.

Assumptions on the table: 48 working weeks a year, and a recovery range of 40 to 70 percent, which is what well-chosen small-business automation tends to return. Ranges, not promises. Your real number depends on which quadrants your tasks landed in above.

Next: the readiness check ↓
Tool 3 of 3

Are you actually ready for it?

Six honest statements. Answer them as things are today, not as you would like them to be.

FOUNDATIONS FIRST READY NOW NOT YET WATCH AND WAIT Foundations in place → Payoff on offer →

Answer all six and your dot appears.

Last step: send it to Greg ↓
By trade

Twelve playbooks, researched July 2026

The same grid, pre-built for your industry: what to automate, what the manual work costs, the tools with checked Australian pricing, and the honest list of where to keep your money.

Before you hand over your email

Who you would be dealing with

Greg Rigby, Bantam Growth Studio
Twenty years of walking business floors looking for the waste. This one happened to sell cars.
Enterprise IT, 20 plus years
Continuous improvement and process automation inside large organisations. Finding the waste, rebuilding leaner.
Founder, Bantam
I build and run a suite of small-business software. AI does the heavy lifting daily, and every pipeline stops at a human gate.
Bantam Growth Studio
The consulting arm. Evidence first, and no when there is nothing to fix.
Process first, tools second. Boring beats clever, the reminder earns more than the demo. Humans stay on the gate for anything a customer sees. You will hear no when you do not need it.

I do not just advise on this, I operate it. Across the Bantam software suite, more than 700 automated customer messages went out last month, every single one released through a human gate. Six deterministic pipelines run the day-to-day, and when something needs judgment, it stops and waits for a person. The same discipline this page recommends to you is the discipline my own company runs on.

The longer story is on the about page and LinkedIn.

The point of all this

Send me your map. I will send you a straight read.

Tell me what is eating your time. Whatever you built above rides along with your message, so my reply is about your business, not a brochure.

What comes back is my honest take on whether automation is worth it for you, what I would do first, and what I would not bother with: process design, software selection, build versus buy versus neither. I read and answer every one of these myself, and right now the wait is a few weeks. Spots are held in the order they arrive.

Your details and your map go to Greg at Bantam Growth Studio only, stored in our own systems, never sold or shared. Privacy
That did not send. Check the email address and try again in a minute.
Got it. You are in the queue.

I reply personally to every one of these. The current wait is a few weeks, spots are held in order, and if the honest answer is that you do not need AI, or a thirty-dollar tool already does the job, that is exactly what I will send you.