Can SMB Fathom AI?

Welcome back

Welcome to Talk to Walk, your go-to newsletter empowering small business owners with clear, actionable AI insights to boost your success from day one! This week, let’s learn from others as we continue leveraging this powerful technology.

Lessons from SMB Communities

Over the weekend, we started looking through dozens of conversations in different SMB communities to learn more about their thoughts on AI. Here is what we learned.

AI for Small Biz: Hype vs. Reality

Yes, AI is helping small businesses.

They’re using it to write faster, summarize calls (Like our app of the week), and automate content copy. Big time-savers.

But here’s why many are skeptical (and rightfully so)

Setup is a Pain

Most tools promise ease but require confusing setups and tech know-how SMBs don’t have.

Feels Too Robotic

Bots answering emails or running your chat? Customers notice and they don’t like it.

Simple mistakes undo the value

When AI makes a small mistake that a human wouldn’t it kills trust. This makes it hard for SMB owners to trust it, let alone invest time and money.

Set It and Forget It = Regret It

AI isn’t autopilot. Without upkeep, automations break and erode trust fast.

Bottom line: AI can help, but there is much work to be done before SMB fully trusts AI to make a meaningful difference automating tasks.

App of the week: Fathom

If your calendar is stacked with Zoom or Google Meet calls, Fathom AI might be the assistant you didn’t know you needed. It automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes your meetings, no buttons, no brainpower required. You get clean takeaways and action items without ever re-watching a call. Fathom is currently the highest rated AI notetaker on the market. For good reason.

What makes it SMB gold?

First, Fathom has a generous free plan, which is one of the best in the AI note-taker market. With unlimited recordings, transcriptions, and storage capacity, it offers an excellent solution for free to say goodbye to your meeting notes! (As I can personally attest)

Even better: after each call, Fathom sends me a full summary and if I want, it can automatically email my guests a clean list of what we discussed and what needs doing. It’s like having a silent, super - organized chief of staff in the background.

If you're managing client calls, sales pitches, or team check-ins, this is the kind of AI tool that actually saves time instead of making more work.

→ Try Fathom Here

“How to” of the Week:

We took this from @austin_rief on X, But we have been using over at HQ for the last week and we are blown away by the results. Give it a try!

This works because you are essentially asking the AI to generate your question in the language it knows best, then asking the question in that language. At the end of the day, AI is just guessing the best word based on what you asked, and the extra details you add can cause some amount of confusion. This short circuts that and gets you exactly what you want.

That’s it for this week.

Tell us what you want to see in the future. We would love to hear your ideas. Make sure to subscribe so you can join us in this journey of discovery.

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Until then,

The Talk to Walk team