Last day of September. Cartoon Nick counted, and this month alone the series covered scheduled tasks, three Grok Bot posts, spreadsheets, brand consistency, reviews, Projects, WordPress SEO, privacy, video, and email. That is a lot of new habits. Some stuck. Some did not. Today is about finding out which.
AI at Work Tip #85: The 20-minute AI audit
Open your bank statement and your app subscriptions. Paste the AI-related lines in:
Here are my AI-related subscriptions and usage charges for September: [paste, with amounts]. Here is a list of what I actually did with AI this month: [paste your honest list]. Build a table: tool, monthly cost, what I used it for, hours it saved (estimate), verdict (keep, downgrade, cancel). Then tell me which single tool delivered the most value per dollar and which one I am paying for out of habit. Be blunt.Cartoon Nick's own audit last month cancelled two tools and downgraded one. That money went into more Higgsfield credits, which is where the actual client work happens.
AI at Work Tip #86: Pick one thing to automate for Q4, and only one
Q4 is when small businesses get busy and stop improving anything. So pick the one automation from this month's series that would save the most time between now and December 31, set it up this week, and ignore the rest until January.
Here are the AI habits I learned this month: [paste the list from the series]. Based on my business ([describe it]) and my busiest season being [when], rank them by hours saved between now and December 31. Recommend exactly one to set up this week, with a step-by-step setup plan I can finish in under an hour. Commit to one. Do not hedge.One. Cartoon Nick has watched too many people set up six automations in a weekend and abandon all of them by Thanksgiving.
What's hot right now
September's big picture: GPT-6 Astra proved the frontier is agents that operate software, not chatbots that write better. Open-weight models cut costs by 100x for routine work. Every lab shipped an "ask before you act" behavior. And Grok Bot templates showed how fast a new capability becomes a marketplace, with all the risk that brings. October will bring more. You do not need all of it. You need the three things that fit your business, done well.
Where your web guy fits in
The same audit applies to your website. What did it cost this month, what did it produce, and what is one thing you could fix before Q4 traffic arrives? If you want that audit done by someone who has run it on 44 sites, that is what the Site Scan at webguynick.com is for. Then we talk about Q4.
Frequently asked questions
How often should a small business review AI subscriptions?
Monthly. Usage patterns change fast and most people are paying for at least one tool out of habit.
What is the best AI automation to set up before Q4?
The one that saves the most hours in your specific busy season. Pick one, finish it in a week, and leave the rest for January.
