BB Cloud Developments

AI consulting and implementation · Indianapolis

AI that does real work in your business, set up safely.

For Indianapolis and central Indiana businesses of five to fifty people that know AI could help and want it done properly: pointed at the tasks that actually cost you time, on accounts you control, with a person approving whatever matters. From a cloud security engineer, so the access and the data handling are right from the start.

Where AI pays off

Four kinds of work where AI reliably earns its keep in a small business, each with the way it usually goes wrong.

AI assistants your staff can use safely

Microsoft 365 Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, on business accounts the company administers, for drafting, summarising, research and analysis.

Where it goes wrong: staff on personal accounts pasting in customer details, or Copilot switched on over years of over-shared folders so that anyone can ask it about anything.

What I do: choose the tool to fit what you already run, clean up file permissions before anything is connected, set the admin and data controls, and train your team on their own work.

Documents read, sorted and filed

Referrals, invoices, intake forms, insurance cards, signed agreements: AI reads what arrives, pulls out the details that matter, and files it against the right record.

Where it goes wrong: extraction trusted blindly, with nobody noticing the one field it misread.

What I do: build the intake with a confidence check, so clear cases flow straight through and unclear ones stop at a person, with a record of every document handled.

Email sorted and replies drafted

The shared inbox triaged as mail arrives, routine questions answered in a draft waiting for approval, and the day's calls or messages summarised.

Where it goes wrong: an AI sending to customers on its own, in a voice that is not yours, about something it got slightly wrong.

What I do: drafts, never sends, unless you decide otherwise for a narrow, well-tested case. The approval step is the design, not an afterthought.

AI tools built around your own information

An assistant that answers from your procedures, price lists and past work, or an agent that runs a multi-step process across the systems you already use.

Where it goes wrong: a chatbot that answers confidently from nothing, or an agent given more access than the task needs.

What I do: scope it in discovery, prove it with a working prototype on real examples, and give it only the access the task requires, logged.

AI readiness check

Is your business ready to use AI?

Ten questions, about two minutes. Not sure is a useful answer. Nothing you choose leaves your browser.

  1. 01Can you name one task that is repetitive, text-heavy, and done every week?

    AI earns its keep on specific work: reading documents, drafting replies, sorting email, pulling details out of forms. “Use AI more” is not a project. “Stop re-typing intake forms” is.

  2. 02Is there a written rule on what staff may and may not paste into AI tools?

    Most staff already use AI, often on personal accounts, often with customer details. A one-page policy and an approved tool beat a ban nobody follows.

  3. 03Is AI use on business accounts the company controls, not personal ones?

    Business plans of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot keep your data out of model training by default and give you an admin console. A free personal account gives you neither.

  4. 04Before connecting an AI assistant to your files, has anyone checked who can see what?

    Copilot and other connected assistants show each person anything their permissions allow. Old “anyone with the link” shares and over-broad folders surface instantly, payroll included.

  5. 05Is the information an AI would need already in one place, in digital form?

    AI cannot read the paper binder or the spreadsheet on one person's desktop. Getting the data into a system is often the real first project.

  6. 06Wherever an AI output reaches a customer, a payment or a record, does a person approve it?

    AI is fast and usually right. “Usually” is fine for a draft and not for an invoice. The design question is where the human checkpoint sits.

  7. 07If you handle health, financial or other regulated data, is it kept out of AI tools that lack the agreement your rules require? (Yes if you do not handle it.)

    Protected health information needs a signed BAA with the AI vendor, and most consumer plans do not offer one. Financial and legal work has its own rules.

  8. 08Do you know what the business pays for AI tools today, across every person?

    AI subscriptions arrive one card at a time. Duplicated tools and unused seats are common, and so is paying for features already in your Microsoft 365 or Google plan.

  9. 09Could you show, in hours, whether an AI rollout actually saved time?

    Without a before number there is no after number. Timing the task first is what turns “it feels faster” into a result you can defend.

  10. 10Has your team had hands-on training using your own work as the examples?

    Most of the value in tools you already pay for goes unused because nobody showed people how it applies to their actual day.

Answer the questions above and your score, with what to fix first, appears here. Nothing you choose leaves this page.

How a project runs

Discovery
A fixed-fee review of how you work now: the tasks worth handing to AI, the ones to leave alone, the accounts, permissions and data that need attention first, and what each step would cost. Yours to keep whether or not you continue.
Groundwork
Business accounts, file permissions, a one-page AI use policy and, where regulated data is involved, the vendor agreements and a data map.
Pilot
One workflow, timed before and after, with a person approving the output. Small on purpose, so the evidence arrives quickly.
Rollout
The next workflows, each quoted on its own, and hands-on training for the people who will use them, built around their real tasks.
Handover
Runbooks and documentation written for whoever runs it next. No dependency on me by design.

Fixed fees, quoted after a free thirty-minute call. You know the price before anything starts.

Where not to use AI

Part of the job is saying no. I will tell you to leave AI out where a wrong answer is expensive and nobody would catch it, where the task happens a few times a year, where plain automation without AI does the job more reliably, or where software you can buy off the shelf already does it. That is cheapest to hear in discovery.

In Indianapolis

BB Cloud Developments is based in Indianapolis. I meet clients in person across central Indiana, including Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, Zionsville, Greenwood, Lawrence, Avon and Plainfield, and work remotely with businesses anywhere in the United States. You work directly with the person building it.

Questions

How much does AI consulting cost for a small business?

Fixed fees, never hourly. Work starts with a fixed-fee discovery engagement that produces a written plan you keep either way, and each build after it is quoted per workflow against what discovery found. You know the price before any work starts. The first conversation, thirty minutes, is free.

Where should a small business start with AI?

With one task, not a platform. The best first candidate is recurring, text-heavy and costly when it is missed: intake forms, documents that arrive by email, the same replies written over and over. Time it as it is now, pilot AI on it with a person approving the output, and decide on the evidence. Before that, put staff on business accounts and write down what may go into the tools.

Will our business data be used to train AI models?

On the business plans of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft 365 Copilot, not by default: those plans keep your content out of model training and give you an admin console. The risk is usually staff using free personal accounts, which is why moving AI use onto accounts the business controls is one of the first steps.

Should we use Microsoft 365 Copilot or ChatGPT?

It depends on what you run. If the business lives in Microsoft 365, Copilot works inside Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams and can reach your files, which is its strength and the reason file permissions need cleaning up first. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are strong general assistants that are simpler to roll out. Many small businesses end up with one of each. The recommendation comes from what you use, not from a vendor.

Can AI be used with HIPAA-protected or other regulated data?

Yes, with conditions. Protected health information needs a vendor that signs a Business Associate Agreement, tools configured to match it, and a written data map of where the information goes. Regulated work is fine here: the data map and the agreements are built in from the start, not added at the end.

Will AI replace my staff?

That is rarely the point at this size. The goal is taking the repetitive part of people's jobs off them, so the hours go to the work that needs them. Anything consequential keeps a person approving it.

Do you only work with Indianapolis businesses?

In-person work covers Indianapolis and central Indiana, including Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, Zionsville, Greenwood, Lawrence, Avon and Plainfield. Everything else is delivered remotely, anywhere in the United States.

Why hire a cloud security engineer for AI?

Because connecting AI to a business is mostly a question of access: what the tool can read, who can see its answers, where the data goes and what gets logged. Those are the questions I answer every day. The AI part is increasingly easy. Doing it without exposing the payroll folder is the skill.

Next step

Tell me the one task you would most like off your team's plate. I will tell you, briefly and for free, whether AI is the right answer for it.

brevin@bbclouddevelopments.com