Hey there,
How many times did you type your hours this week? Or "yes, we take walk-ins"? This week is about getting those minutes back.
This week: build a reply library in 30 minutes
Every business answers the same handful of questions over and over. This week's article walks you through finding your top 10, letting AI write the first drafts once, and saving them as templates in Gmail or Outlook so the next answer takes seconds instead of minutes.
Free download: the Reply Library Starter Kit, 25 ready to edit customer replies plus the prompts, is in the article for subscribers.
Safe or not?
Pasting a customer's email into AI to draft your reply: safe, if you strip it first. Swap names, phone numbers, addresses and order details for [Customer] before you paste, and never paste card numbers, passwords or health information. Then check whether your AI tool trains on your chats. The article shows where that setting lives in ChatGPT.
AI news that matters to you
OpenAI is retiring some older models used by apps and automations. On October 14, OpenAI announced that GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini will be shut off in its API on January 14, 2027. This isn't about the ChatGPT app you type into. But if someone built you a website chatbot, an automation or a Zapier-style workflow that calls one of these models directly, it will stop working that day unless it's switched to a newer model. Ask whoever built it now, while there's time. Source: OpenAI API deprecations
Google's new Deep Review keeps your uploads for a year. Google opened Deep Review worldwide on October 14. You upload a PDF or text file and its AI checks the document and sends back detailed feedback, with two free reviews a week. Google says uploads are never used to train its models, but they are stored for one year so you can see them in the tool. Fine for a draft proposal or a policy. Think twice before uploading contracts or anything with customer details. Source: Google Research
5 minute win
Open your sent folder and search for the last answer you typed more than once. Copy it into a new message, clean it up and save it as a template right now. That's reply number one in your library.
Your turn
Hit reply: what's the one question your customers ask that you're tired of answering?
Know an owner who's buried in email? Forward this to them. They can subscribe free at theaiownersbrief.com.
Talk soon,
Patrick
The AI Owner's Brief is written by an IT pro with 24 years of keeping small businesses running. Reply anytime; I read every email.