A NAIC study cited by Forbes confirms it: 71% of small businesses depend on one or two people — the three questions to ask before buying an AI tool, already built into AppManager
The same Forbes article we commented on yesterday (70% of failed AI transformations) contains a figure closer to our own clients: according to a study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, 71% of small businesses rely on one or two people to keep running. Its advice before buying any AI tool: three questions, not a sales pitch.
The July 28 Forbes article we already commented on yesterday (see the 70% figure for failed AI transformations, per BCG) contains a second, less-cited figure that's closer to the reality of our own clients: according to a study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, 71% of small businesses depend on one or two people to keep running. That's not a software problem — it's a human dependency that no tool, AI or not, fixes on its own. Which is exactly what makes useful the advice the article attributes to Anthony Godley (founder of Logix BPO, who grew from a single client to over 1,000 employees): before buying any AI tool, ask three questions — who else has the authority to decide, is success defined, and would it work without you. Three questions that take five minutes and save you from installing a tool nobody else knows how to run.
The article adds a concrete, almost operational recommendation: train at least one employee every month on an undocumented critical task. That's a cadence, not a one-off project — exactly the kind of discipline most small businesses have neither the time nor the reflex to impose on themselves, especially right when they're adding automation to their processes. At AppManager, a new module (Fleet, Tourism, Health) never switches on all at once for an entire business: it starts on a narrow scope, with every action the agent takes — a message sent, a reminder, a stock update — subject to explicit human approval before execution, module by module, until the team has seen enough decisions go by to widen the scope itself. That's not a compliance checkbox bolted on afterward: it's literally an answer to the article's three questions, built into the product rather than left for the small business to figure out alone.
For AppH
- AppManager's approval log directly answers the question "would it work without you?": the logic behind every decision (who approved what, and why) stays available to any authorized member of the team, not just locked inside the founder's head.
- That same log also doubles as ongoing training: a new employee can see how past decisions were made and approved, module by module — exactly the "train someone every month" reflex the article recommends, except it builds itself simply by being used.
Against / what doesn't apply
- AppManager can't answer the question "is success defined?" on the client's behalf — that's a strategic decision, not a product setting. A well-designed module never substitutes for a goal that leadership hasn't clearly stated yet.
- The 71% figure comes from a US study (NAIC), not a measurement of our own French or European clients — a plausible directional signal for fleet, tourism, or health SMBs, not a verified statistic on our own client base.
The 71% figure doesn't surprise us: most of our clients are exactly this kind of small business where one or two people carry everything. That's why we never built AppManager as a tool you install and then let run on its own. Every agent, in every module, waits for explicit human confirmation before acting on anything with a real consequence — a client contacted, an invoice sent, stock changed. That's not a technical limitation we hope to lift someday, it's a choice, and it stays true even when a client asks us to move faster. The question "would it work without you?" is really the right question to ask about your OWN decision process before adding an agent, not about the agent itself — software can't answer that on the owner's behalf. What we can guarantee is that once the answer is found, it stays applied decision after decision, not just on launch day.
Reviewed by a human at AppH