AI for Your Business: Practical Tools, Real Privacy

Hosted by: Marc Krejci, Entrepreneur in Residence, SnoValley Innovation Center Format:
60-minute workshop (presentation + live demo)

What This Session Is

A practical, no-jargon workshop on using AI tools that already exist to do real work in your business, without giving up your data or your sanity.

We’ll skip the hype and the headlines. Instead, you’ll see how the major AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini) all let you build reusable, customized helpers for the work you do every day. Then we’ll go deep on one, Claude, and walk through a hands-on example you can take back to your own business that afternoon.

We’ll use the SnoValley Innovation Center itself as our example “company,” planning the rest of the year, drafting board-ready artifacts, and sketching a marketing schedule together in real time.

This session is the first in a series. A future Innovation Friday will cover offline AI tools (Ollama, Gemma, MSTY) for those who want AI capability without sending anything to the cloud. Come to this one first; it sets the foundation.

What You’ll Learn

• How AI tools actually handle your data. What’s stored, what isn’t, and which fears are
  warranted (vs. which are myths)
• How the major AI assistants compare. Claude Skills, ChatGPT Custom GPTs,
  Microsoft Copilot Studio Agents, and Google Gemini Gems all do similar things; we’ll
  show you which fits which business
• How to build a custom skill for your own work. Live walkthrough in Claude, with the
  same patterns applying to whichever tool you choose
• A real example planning work for SVIC, so you see exactly how to apply this to your
  own business
• How AI connectors work. Linking your email, calendar, project tools, and CRM directly
  to your AI assistant.

Who This Is For

Small business owners, operators, and staff in the Snoqualmie Valley who want to put AI to
work in their business. Not learn to code, not build the next ChatGPT, just get more done
with less friction.

No technical background required.

Agenda (60 minutes)

Time Segment
0:00 to 0:08 Welcome, introductions, what you hope to walk away with
0:08 to 0:14 The privacy conversation: how AI tools actually use your data
0:14 to 0:22 The four major tools: what each one does well
0:22 to 0:42 Deep dive in Claude: building a custom skill + the SVIC example
0:42 to 0:50 Connectors preview: linking AI to your real business tools
0:50 to 1:00 Open Q&A and demos by request

After the Session

You’ll leave with:

• A working understanding of how Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini compare for
  business use
• A clear picture of what a custom skill looks like and how to build one
• A reusable approach you can adapt from the SVIC example
• A clear-eyed view of what to trust, what to verify, and what’s coming next

Want to actually build this for your own business? Sign up for Office Hours. That’s where
we go one-on-one, work with your real tools and your real data, and get something running
you can use the next day.

Coming Next

Future Innovation Friday (date TBD): AI Without the Cloud, Running Capable AI Tools
Entirely on Your Own Computer. For privacy-sensitive work, regulated industries, or anyone
who wants to know they own every byte. We’ll cover Ollama, Google’s Gemma model, and
MSTY desktop.

Questions? Email Marc at marc@pfndr.co or come to the next Office Hours.