What AI agents can already do for a small business, and where they still fail.

The best free resources

• Agency and Agents
  What agents can and can't do yet, and where people must approve.
  Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing · Aug 2026

• Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop?
  An AI ran a small shop and lost money: clear lessons for owners.
  Anthropic · Jun 2025

• Project Vend: Phase two
  Better tools made the AI shop profitable, but customers still tricked it.
  Anthropic · Dec 2025

• AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time
  Benchmark and Gartner data on agent failures and "agent washing" by vendors.
  Thomas Claburn, The Register · Jun 2025

• Zapier Agents: Work hand in hand with AI agents
  Step-by-step setup of a no-code agent, starting with low-stakes tasks.
  Elena Alston, Zapier · Nov 2025

• Agentic AI Use Cases
  Turn stalled to-do items into agent tasks with a clear "done" definition.
  Christopher S. Penn, Almost Timely · Nov 2026

• Business Tech News: New AI Agents For Construction, Accounting, Property Management…
  Which ready-made agents small firms in different trades can buy now.
  Gene Marks, genemarks.com · Nov 2026

• TUTORIAL: go from ChatGPT.com to building your first agent
  Beginner walk-through from the chat window to your first scheduled agent.
  Allie K. Miller, AI with ALLIE · Oct 2026

Curated by effectiveAI. Every link checked November 2026. Know a better free resource? Tell us.