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AI automation for SMBs: what actually works

You’ve known for a while that AI has to find its way into your business too. Offers for it are everywhere. The most important question is still open: what will actually help your team, and where do you start? On this page you’ll see real projects that are already running today, and find ideas for your own processes.

Let’s talk Ask a quick question Free 30-minute intro call.

Companies I’ve worked with

  • ComputerSysteme Lonz
  • TGAcode
  • becoflamm
  • WOWING
  • Meterstein Terrassendach
  • Driverscheck
  • LeeFinance Real Estate
  • Raiffeisen Volt

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar?

Then you’re in good company. Most companies don’t lack the will. They lack the overview: what AI can reliably do today, what it costs and where it fits into your daily work.

You don’t need to bring that overview with you. I bring it, along with examples that are already running at clients.

Jump to the examples

What AI can already do today: three cases from my projects

Workflows that run at clients every day. I deliberately don’t name the clients.

With AI

The project inbox turns into a task list

Starting point
Two projects, with 7 and 11 people involved, each share one inbox. Who a message is meant for usually only shows up in the greeting, and in forwarded emails it’s somewhere down the thread. Before anything becomes a task, someone has to pick up the email and work through it.
Solution
An AI reads every incoming email, identifies the contact person, deadline and topic, and creates a Planner task from it, directly in the bucket of the right person.
Result
Every request has an owner and a date, and nobody has to sort the inbox.

ToolsPower Automate, AI, Microsoft Planner

With AI

What gets agreed in a meeting shows up as a task afterward

Starting point
Tasks get handed out in the meeting. Afterward, someone has to transfer them from notes or from memory, and the transcript often spells the same name in different ways.
Solution
The action items from the Fireflies transcript automatically become Planner tasks. The AI matches the names to the right people, writes clear task titles and prevents duplicate tasks.
Result
No more typing things up after the meeting. Every task lands with the person who took it on.

ToolsFireflies, AI, Microsoft Planner

With AI

An overview of 250 workflows and 50 Make scenarios

Starting point
Over the years, one client built up around 250 HubSpot workflows and 50 Make scenarios. When something goes wrong, the first question is: which workflow was it, and why?
Solution
  • Interactive documentation for each process chain, such as onboarding, tool setup or SEPA mandates, that updates itself when something changes.
  • An error log that collects warnings from Make and HubSpot every hour. The AI explains the cause and suggests a fix, but never changes anything itself.
  • A customer dashboard with every company, headquarters and branch, and the tools that were set up for each of them.
  • A chat about the client’s own automations, for example: “Why wasn’t a Planner plan created for customer X?”
Result
Questions about the client’s own processes get answered in a chat, instead of a search through hundreds of workflows. The data stays in the client’s own environment.

ToolsCloudflare Pages, Workers and Access (Zero Trust), Claude Team, MCP

More examples, some with AI, some without

Not every problem needs AI. Often a clean automation is enough, and it’s cheaper and more reliable. Knowing which one fits where is half the battle.

Find your first use case

Pick your area and go through the questions. Every yes is a possible starting point, and each one has an example on this page.

Sales and CRM: Sound familiar?

  • Do you enter leads from portals or forms into HubSpot by hand? See the example
  • After customer meetings, does someone have to type up what needs to happen next? See the example
  • Is every new customer set up in several tools, one by one? See the example

Also possible

  • Claude with direct access to your HubSpot, connected through MCP.
  • A HubSpot setup that we design together and that gets built directly through the API.

Projects and teams: Sound familiar?

Also possible

  • A project AI in Microsoft 365 that knows your Planner, meeting transcripts, project emails and SOPs, and that you can ask questions in a chat.

Customers and service: Sound familiar?

  • Does every new customer get a channel, a task plan and access to many tools, all set up by hand? See the example
  • Do customers ask for proof or certificates for their employees? See the example
  • Does someone have to turn every new device or ticket into a task first? See the example

Administration: Sound familiar?

  • Do you collect signatures for mandates or contracts by email and file them by hand? See the example
  • Do your automations use more operations or credits than they need to? See the example
  • Is there old data that would need to be cleaned up before you automate? See the example

Knowledge: Sound familiar?

  • Do new colleagues keep asking the same questions, and the answer lives in one person’s head? See the example
  • Has your team lost track of what your automations do, and when? See the example
  • Are there processes that aren’t written down anywhere? See the example

What I build for you

Depending on the process: with AI, with a simple automation, or with both.

How we get started

You don’t need to know what’s possible beforehand. Figuring that out is part of my job.

For most of my clients, HubSpot is the center of everything. That’s why I connect AI and automation directly to HubSpot and Microsoft 365, instead of building yet another system next to it. That way you get HubSpot, automation and AI from one person.

Find your first use case

  1. We collect your processes

    In the intro call, you tell me where your team loses time. You don’t need any prior knowledge of AI for that.

  2. I sort them honestly

    For each process, you get my assessment: simple automation, AI, or better not at all. Plenty of things don’t need AI and run cheaper and more reliably without it.

  3. We start with one use case

    The one that saves the most time. That way you quickly see whether AI pays off for you, without setting up a big program first.

  4. Once it runs, the next one follows

    I document what was built and why, and I stay available when something changes.

What you can count on

The most common worry about AI is losing control. Here’s how I build so that doesn’t happen.

Tools I work with

CRM and automation
  • HubSpot incl. API
  • Make
  • Power Automate
  • Zapier
  • Airtable
Microsoft 365
  • Graph API
  • Planner
  • Teams
  • Outlook
  • SharePoint
AI and infrastructure
  • Claude (Team, Projects, Claude Code, MCP)
  • Cloudflare (Pages, Workers, Access)
  • Python
Business systems and knowledge
  • Notion
  • LearningSuite
  • Atera
  • Fireflies
  • Easybill
  • Google Docs

What clients and partners say

ComputerSysteme Lonz

Besides several HubSpot optimizations, Lorenz delivered larger automation projects for us. For example, every participant who passes the exam in our academy automatically receives their personal certificate as a PDF by email, and every new customer automatically gets an onboarding plan with dynamic deadlines and automatic staff assignment. We are happy to recommend Lorenz.

Translated from German

Emanuel LonzManaging Director, ComputerSysteme Lonz
WOWING

We have been working with Lorenz for quite a while on various automation and integration solutions for shared clients. He is absolutely reliable, always quick to reach, and not only knows HubSpot inside out but also brings a real understanding of automation and the human processes behind it. I’m happy to recommend him!

Translated from German

Michael PauliManaging Director, WOWING GmbH
Lorenz Ritter von Stein
Lorenz Ritter von Stein at his desk with a laptop

Hi, I’m Lorenz.

I’ve been building automations for 6 years.

I started out at two companies that grew from around 15 to more than 60 employees within a few years. In my last role there, I was responsible for all automation, plus the sales processes, the AI strategy, tracking and reporting.

Today I build automations and AI applications for B2B companies, around HubSpot, Microsoft 365 and the other business systems they use. From sorting a project inbox to a cockpit for around 250 workflows.

More about me My LinkedIn profile

Frequently asked questions about AI in your business

Where do I start with AI in my business?

With a process that comes up often, has clear boundaries and costs noticeable time today, for example an inbox someone has to sort, or tasks from meetings. That’s where you quickly see whether AI pays off. We’ll figure out in the intro call which process that is for you.

Isn’t it enough if everyone on our team uses ChatGPT?

It helps with individual tasks, like writing or summarizing. But AI only saves noticeable time once it’s built into your processes and works directly with emails, tasks and CRM data. That’s exactly what the examples on this page show.

Do we need an AI strategy first?

Not necessarily. A first use case that actually runs gets you further than a document sitting in a drawer. If you want a plan for several areas, we develop the AI strategy together, with a clear order of priorities instead of a list of ideas.

Is our company too small for AI?

Probably not. The email triage on this page runs in projects with 7 and 11 people, the knowledge base at a company with around 43 employees. What matters is a process that comes up often enough.

What is an AI agent?

An AI agent is a program that uses a language model to complete a task on its own in several steps, for example reading an email, identifying the right contact person and creating a task from it. Unlike a fixed automation, it can handle unstructured input such as emails, transcripts or documents.

Does the AI change data on its own?

No. In my solutions, the AI makes suggestions and a person decides. The error log in the automation cockpit, for example, explains the cause of an error and suggests a fix, but never changes anything itself.

Where is our data stored?

Wherever possible, customer data stays in the customer’s own environment. I secure access on the zero-trust principle, and where it’s enough, I only use read-only access.

Do I need HubSpot for this?

No. Most of my automations are connected to HubSpot because it’s the center of my clients’ setups. But processes in Microsoft 365, in administration or in other business systems can be automated without HubSpot too.

How much does AI automation cost?

It depends on the process and the systems involved. After the free intro call, you get a proposal with scope, timeline and price. I deliberately keep running costs for operations and credits low.

More on HubSpot

Let’s find your first use case.

Tell me where your team loses time. In a free 30-minute intro call, we look at your processes and find the use case that makes the best starting point.

Available times

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