Artificial intelligence is no longer just a future possibility; it has arrived, and small business owners across all industries are feeling the pressure to act.
Some are automating everything they can, while others are avoiding AI altogether. Many are stuck somewhere in between, unsure how to make wise decisions when new tasks come their way.
Dean Mercado, founder of Online Marketing Muscle and a business coach with more than two decades of experience, clearly sees this paralysis. He also sees what happens when business owners overcorrect in either direction.
“Some business owners are going to swing hard to the right,” Mercado says. “They’re going to say we’ve got to use AI for everything, replace people, automate everything. And then you’ve got the other side where they’re trying to fend off AI like they’re fending off a vampire.” Both camps, he argues, lose.
His solution is a framework he calls the ACE Test, a three-part filter that business owners can apply to any task before deciding whether AI should be included in the process. If the task passes all three, use AI. If it doesn’t, skip it.
A is for advantage
The first question Mercado wants business owners to ask is whether using AI creates a real business advantage. He defines advantage in straightforward terms. “Does it make things better, faster, cheaper without lowering my standards?”
Better means clearer thinking, stronger structure, and fewer mistakes. Faster means compressing the time it takes to produce a first draft, a first analysis, or a first version of something. Cheaper means reducing wasted labor, preventing rework, and lowering costs overall.
The critical caveat is that speed alone does not qualify as an advantage. “If it makes it faster but worse, that’s not an advantage,” Mercado says. “That’s accelerated mediocrity.”
C is for control
The second part of the test addresses one of the most common mistakes Mercado sees businesses make. They automate processes they don’t fully understand, allow AI to respond publicly without human review, or let pricing decisions run without any oversight.
“A human has to verify it, a human edits it, a human approves it,” he says. “If you can’t explain how the outcome was produced, you shouldn’t deploy it.”
Mercado is direct about what losing control looks like in practice. Business owners who let AI publish blog content they haven’t read, or who respond to customers using AI-generated messages they haven’t reviewed, are putting their brand at risk for the sake of convenience. “You’re willing to sacrifice your brand? AI can draft it. You still have to own it.”
E is for edge
The final element of the test asks whether using AI gives the business a genuine competitive edge. Not more activity. Not higher volume. A real advantage over competitors in the market.
Mercado warns that 2026 will bring an explosion of generic AI-generated content, and businesses that rely on it without customization will blend into the background. “Generic AI content will explode. Most of it is just going to blend in like a gray wall.” His advice is to train AI specifically to reflect and sharpen what makes a business distinct.
If the tool doesn’t strengthen a business’s edge, he argues, it quietly weakens it.
The ACE Test is intentionally uncomplicated. Advantage, control, edge. Mercado’s point is that the best decisions about AI don’t require deep technical knowledge. They require honest answers to three straightforward questions.
“If it doesn’t pass all three,” he says, “you’re probably better off not using it.”
