Most companies using AI cannot yet point to returns because they automated the wrong thing first. The fastest payback is almost always in drafting, summarizing and internal search - measured in staff hours per week, with a clean data boundary.
Around nine in ten smaller companies now use or experiment with AI; very few report measurable ROI. The pattern behind that gap is consistent: pilots chosen by enthusiasm rather than by hours, and no baseline measured before the tool arrived, so nobody can prove what changed.
The fix is boringly practical. Measure hours in the two or three drafting-heavy workflows first. Pilot where the data boundary is clean. Write down the before number. Our review does exactly this on the opportunity side — the sample readout on that page shows a measured 9–11 hours a week found in one renewal workflow.