Applied AI Insider: the useful parts of applied AI, in one quiet place

A free, private library for people who run a small business: a five-minute AI brief every morning, books, courses, templates and tools that answer real questions. Sign up with just your email.

This morning's brief

Record 1,400 Windows Fixes, One Already Under Attack. Microsoft fixed more than 1,400 security flaws this month, a record pushed up by AI bug hunting, and Shopify opened its catalog so shoppers' AI agents can browse and buy from your store.

Latest articles

• AI Interviewers Are on Sale. Read This Before One Screens Your Next Hire.: Tools that rank resumes and hold the first interview are reaching small hiring teams. The law treats their choices as yours, so set the rules first.
• ChatGPT Signed a Real Artist's Name. Check Your AI Pictures Before You Post Them.: AI image tools can slip a real person's signature, a logo or a look-alike into a flyer. A two-minute check before anything goes out keeps that off your storefront.
• Running the Office on Microsoft 365 Family? Read This Before Your Renewal.: Microsoft is turning six separate terabytes into one shared 2TB pool and starting to share Copilot across the plan. For a small office on a home plan, it's a good moment to decide where the business lives.
• Claude's New Rules Start November 12. Here Is the Part That Touches Your Business.: Anthropic rewrote its usage policy. Most of it is about weapons and elections, but a short list covers everyday work like hiring, rentals, taxes and patient triage.
• That "Download Claude" Ad May Not Be Claude. Here Is How Your Office Should Install AI Apps.: Attackers are buying search ads for AI apps and leading people to perfect copies of the real download page. One short house rule stops most of it.
• Who Can Add an Agent to Your Copilot? Decide Before October 25.: Microsoft added a switch for agents that can take actions. If nobody touches it, everyone keeps the door open. Five minutes settles it.
• Which AI Jobs Need Your OK?: The assistants your staff use can now send, move and delete, not just suggest. Sort every job into four piles before they do.
• Buying Office Laptops This Fall? Windows 10 and the New AI PCs, Sorted.: Microsoft just launched $2,599 AI laptops, and paid Windows 10 support for businesses is getting more expensive this month. Here is what a small office should actually buy, and when.
• Free AI Can Now Make Your Proposals. Keep Them in a Company Account.: Claude's documents and slides now work on the free plan, and free ChatGPT is filling up with ads. One account decision this week saves you a lost file, a leaked price list and an awkward exit later.
• Your Custom GPTs Stop Working December 11: OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs on every ChatGPT plan. Here is what to save, what each one becomes, and the order to do it in.
• Google's New AI Agent Works in Microsoft 365, Too. Here Is What That Changes.: The AI helper is coming loose from the office suite you bought. For a business that runs a bit of both, that is good news, and it brings a few new decisions.
• An AI Is Joining Your Meetings. Set the House Rules First.: Note-takers already sit in on calls, and agents that act on what they hear are next. A few plain rules now save an awkward call, or a lawsuit, later.

Books

• The Applied AI Playbook: The complete 2027 SMB AI operating system.
• The AI-Ready Business: The owner's guide to evaluating, budgeting, and deploying AI.
• The AI Champion's Field Guide: The employee becoming the quiet AI leader.
• The 90-Day AI Sprint: A practical rollout plan from kickoff to measured workflow.
• AI By The Job: Role-by-role AI adoption across every department.
• The AI for Microsoft 365 Playbook: Make what you already pay for pay back.
• The Process Capture Playbook: Map the workflows. Own the agent rollout.
• The MCP Practitioner Playbook: Build, deploy, secure, and sell MCP-based services to SMBs.
• So You Wanna Be a Cowboy: A field guide for SMBs on the AI frontier.

Free AI tools

• 2027 AI Law Check: Pick your states and how you use AI. See which AI laws may apply in 2026 and 2027, what they require and when, with a source for every rule. Not legal advice.
• Already-Paid-For AI Finder: Tick the software you already pay for and see the AI features you already have, what costs extra and roughly how much, and what to try first. Vendor-neutral.
• Metered AI Bill Estimator: AI is billed as seats plus usage now. Estimate the fixed and metered parts with dated rates, and get the spending cap to set before agents run.
• Staff AI Rules Kit: Ten questions to a short staff AI policy, a never-goes-into-AI list, a check-before-you-send routine and a sign-off sheet. PDF or Word. Free.
• Agent Permission Planner: Before you connect AI to email, files, accounting or the phone: the permission to give it, the approval setting, what can go wrong, and a one-week trial. Free.
• AI Fraud Drill: A callback rule, code-word procedure, payment-change checklist and 10-minute staff drill for voice-clone calls and fake invoices. PDF or Word. Free.
• Team Minute: Twelve three-minute audio lessons that teach staff safe, useful AI habits, with printable cards and one private share link. No staff accounts.
• Check-the-Work Trainer: Ten AI-drafted messages with mistakes hidden inside. Find what is wrong, then check. Practice the habit that keeps AI errors from reaching customers.
• Client AI Readiness Review: A one-meeting, vendor-neutral AI readiness review an IT partner can run with a client: data, account basics, rules, current AI use, and a client report PDF.
• The AI Champion's Path: A practical path for finding, scoping, proving and explaining useful AI work inside a small or mid-size business.
• The Practitioner Path: The step-by-step path for the person running AI projects for a business: capture the process, scope the pilot, measure it, report it.
• Process Capture Audit: Map how a job really gets done, step by step, before you hand any of it to AI. A worksheet and a guided editor.
• AI Discovery Notebook: A printable notebook for the first AI conversation with a business: what takes the time, what goes wrong, and where AI could help.
• CEO One-Pager: Turn an AI pilot into a one-page report an owner can read in two minutes: the job, the result, the cost and the next step.
• AI Co-Pilot: A guided conversation that walks an owner or AI champion through choosing, scoping and rolling out a first AI project, one plain question at a time.