Questions an AI consultant should ask you, and what a missing one tells you
The questions a competent AI consultant asks before quoting: the work, the systems, your Ontario headcount, personal information, and when to stop.
Notes
Notes
Costs, Ontario rules, published data, and how the work is actually done. Every number on this blog is sourced or is my own quoted price. Where I have not measured something, the post says so.
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How to prepare for an AI consultant: one page, written before the first call
What to write down before you meet an AI consultant: who decides, every system you pay for, your worst hour, three counted jobs, and where personal data sits.
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Signs an AI consultant is overselling, and what an honest pitch sounds like
A savings figure before anyone has watched the work, a product before a problem, nothing marked skip. The signs of an oversold AI pitch, and how to test one.
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Fix the workflow or automate it instead? Name what is broken first
A broken process is a missing rule, missing data, a missing owner, or too much volume. Only the last one is an automation problem. How to tell which you have.
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AI consultant NDA basics: what to have signed before anyone watches your work
An ordinary NDA misses what an AI consultant touches: recordings, AI tools, subcontractors and personal information. The clauses to check before day one.
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How to compare AI consultant quotes when the totals describe different jobs
Two AI quotes only compare once they describe the same job. The eight lines to put side by side, the blanks that matter, and the questions to send back.
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A no-show is a booking you already paid twice for
What a booking reminder sequence costs to build in Ontario, how to count what no-shows cost you before you spend, and the CASL rule that decides the SMS half.
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Nobody in your office should be retyping a supplier invoice
What it costs to extract supplier invoices into QuickBooks or Xero, the CRA rules deciding where records live, and the validation step nobody skips twice.
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The competitor who won that job was not better. They answered first.
How to answer every enquiry in under a minute, what the build costs in Ontario, and the PIPEDA line that decides whether you may enrich a lead at all.
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We asked an AI assistant to recommend a supplier in 34 Ontario cities. Your own website decided the answer 29% of the time.
An original study of 136 AI recommendation queries across 34 Ontario cities. Seven in ten citations came from a page the business does not own.
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Is a marketing agency worth it for a small Ontario business?
Ontario is 63.3% of Canada's advertising industry revenue. Here is what a retainer buys, where the money goes inside an agency, and when to skip one.
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How to market a business when you have no time to market it
Ontario owners work 54 hours a week and lose 735 more a year to compliance. Here is the marketing that survives that, in order, with the hours costed.
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Can AI answer your phone? What an intake agent does, and what it must not do
An AI intake agent answers, qualifies and books, from $4,000 to $15,000 plus running costs. What it cannot do, and the consent rule Ontario callers trip on.
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AI or another employee: what each one actually costs in Ontario
A $50,000 Ontario hire costs about $54,500 in 2026 once CPP, EI and WSIB are added. Here is when that beats a $2,500 to $12,000 automation build.
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n8n, Make or Zapier: the billing unit decides the cost, not the sticker price
Zapier bills per step, Make per module action, n8n per workflow run. On a 12 step workflow that is a 12 to 1 difference. Prices checked August 14, 2026.
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What can AI actually do for my business? Seven jobs, priced
AI removes repeated work, not decisions. Seven jobs it does well in an Ontario business, what each saves, and the $2,500 to $12,000 that a build costs.
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Rural Ontario is at 9.9%. Urban is at 21.0%. That is not a technology gap.
Statistics Canada put rural business AI adoption at 9.9% against 21.0% urban in Q2 2026. Software costs the same everywhere. What differs is access to advice.
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Your staff are already using AI. You just have not written the rule yet.
Statistics Canada found 32.0% of AI-using businesses trained staff. The rest have people improvising with client data and no written rule. Fix that first.
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The four automations that pay in an Ontario trades business
In a trades business the cheapest lead is the one already calling you. Four automations, priced, ranked by return, for Ontario contractors and services.
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A chatbot answers. An agent acts. Most businesses are quoted the wrong one.
Chatbots answer known questions from your documents. Agents take actions in your systems. The price gap is $4,000 to $15,000 and the wrong pick shows.
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Which job to automate first in a business of twelve people
Three tests decide which job to automate first in a small Ontario business: measured hours, whether the process is written down, and whose data it touches.
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PIPEDA reaches your prompts. The OpenAI finding settled that.
The Privacy Commissioner's May 2026 OpenAI finding confirmed Canadian privacy law reaches AI training data, prompts and outputs. What that means for SMEs.
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If you employ 25 people and post a job, Ontario has a rule you may have missed
Since January 1, 2026, Ontario employers with 25 or more employees must say in public job postings whether AI screens, assesses or selects applicants.
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Ontario will pay up to $15,000 toward the plan you were going to pay for
Ontario's DMAP offers up to $15,000 toward a digital adoption plan for SMEs with 1 to 499 employees, and a follow-on program adds up to $50,000.
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Do not buy an AI strategy deck. Buy a list of your own processes.
An AI assessment is worth paying for when it names your own processes with hours and dollars against them. Here is the deliverable list to demand.
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What does AI consulting actually cost in Ontario?
AI consulting in Ontario, priced: a $999 assessment, $2,500 to $12,000 for a workflow build, and the six things that move the number, with sources.
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