Welcome to this week’s edition of the Smarter Than Busy. We have some interesting insights from Upwork, the recent launch of Pomelli, a deep dive into GPTs, and much more.

Let’s dive in.

📰 AI News That Impacts SMBs

Insights and stories at the intersection of AI and small business: what’s changing, why it matters, and how it actually hits the ground

The Key to Growth: How Small Businesses Turn Disruption Into an Edge (Upwork, Oct 2025)

Upwork’s new research surveyed nearly 500 U.S. small and mid-sized business (SMB) leaders and found that those who are thriving through disruption share common traits: they’ve embraced AI, flexible talent, and experimentation as core strategies, not side projects.

These resilient SMBs were:

• More AI-driven: 27% had AI embedded in customer-facing work; 23% in back-office operations.

• More skill-focused: 19% had AI reskilling programs underway.

• More flexible: 31% used independent or freelance specialists.

• More innovative: 23% treated disruption as a cue to experiment, not retreat.

On Upwork’s own platform, SMB job posts seeking AI expertise rose 44% between January and July 2025, showing that many are buying in.

Upwork’s three big imperatives for 2026

1. Unlock AI’s value: Redesign workflows with AI, not just plug-in tools.

2. Hire for skills (as needed): Tap flexible on-demand talent

3. Build systems of innovation: Make experimentation routine.

💡 Why This Matters

For small business owners, the message is clear: adaptability now beats size. SMBs that evolve faster using AI and flexible experts are the ones gaining confidence and resilience.

The traditional model of hiring more full-time staff to grow is giving way to a skills-on-demand approach.

Reskilling and redesigning processes are becoming a competitive edge, not a luxury. Those who invest in both people and adaptability are weathering economic and tech shifts better than those who don’t.

👉 Read The Full Post

Small Businesses Confident Heading Into 2026 — AI, Digital Tools, and Multi-Channel Strategies Powering Growth

A new national survey of 530 small business employers (SBE Council/TechnoMetrica, Oct 3–9, 2025) found strong optimism about year-end 2025 performance, with 84% of small business owners confident in their results and 60% rating current conditions as good or excellent.

The study highlights widespread adoption of AI tools, multi-channel selling, and continued tech investment despite ongoing challenges with inflation, labor, and capital access.

💡 Why This Matters

This survey shows that AI and digital tools have moved from “early adoption” to “standard practice” among U.S. small businesses.

Nearly 9 in 10 are now using AI, averaging almost five digital tools each, and over 90% sell or market across multiple channels (websites, social media, events, and messaging).

That shift matters because it signals a structural change in how small businesses operate and compete. Tech-enabled firms are pulling ahead on productivity, marketing reach, and customer engagement while those not yet adopting risk falling behind.

👉 Read The Full Post

🛠️ Tool Updates / Feature Highlights

Two fresh updates this week that make everyday work simpler without adding headaches

Google Introduces Pomelli 

Google Labs (with DeepMind) has launched Pomelli, an AI tool that helps small businesses create brand-consistent marketing content automatically.

You add your website, and Pomelli will scan your site. In doing so, it learns your logo, fonts, colors, and voice, then generates ready-to-use campaign ideas, images, and captions tailored to your brand.

It’s currently in public beta and available in English in certain regions (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) for now.

🗓️ Released October 28, 2025

🆘 How It Helps

Pomelli removes the heavy lifting of design and copywriting by creating polished, on-brand content in minutes —no agency or designer needed. It keeps your social media looking unified and professional while saving time and money.

🧩 Key Features of Pomelli

• Automatic brand profiling: From your website, it determines your brand’s visual & voice identity (rather than you having to upload a brand kit manually).

• Campaign idea generation: After brand profiling, it suggests campaign directions (you can also input your own prompt).

• Asset generation: It creates social posts, images, headings, and copy assets ready for download and use across channels.

• Editable outputs: You can tweak the generated content (text/images) within the tool before finalizing.

🏥 Example Use Case #1

Local Restaurant Chain — Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Locations

Scenario: Urban Noodle Co. runs multiple restaurant locations, each with its own social accounts. Without centralized marketing support, promotions vary in tone and visual quality, making the brand look inconsistent.

How Pomelli Helps

• Scanning the restaurant’s website and visuals to identify its signature brand style.

• Generating cohesive promotional materials such as social posts, taglines, and ad imagery that reflect that identity.

• Providing editable assets, so each location can tailor content while preserving the chain’s overall look and tone.

Outcome: Store managers can independently create on-brand posts for local campaigns without specialized design tools, ensuring the chain’s marketing remains unified.

🏥 Example Use Case #2

Wild Fern Florals — “Mother’s Day Marketing Made Simple”

Scenario: Wild Fern Florals is a single-location boutique flower shop in Portland. The owner, Maya, manages everything — from ordering stems to running the shop’s Instagram.

She wants to promote a Mother’s Day pre-order special, but struggles to keep her posts consistent with her website’s soft, elegant style. Designing ads in Canva takes too long, and hiring a freelancer isn’t in the budget.

How Pomelli Helps

Maya uploads her business website to Pomelli, which automatically extracts her brand identity muted pastel colors, serif fonts, and a warm, poetic tone.

With a short prompt — “Create a Mother’s Day campaign promoting bouquet pre-orders and in-store pickup” — Pomelli generates:

• Instagram posts and Stories with her brand colors and captions like “Say it with stems 💐 — Pre-order your Mother’s Day bouquet today.”

• Matching email headers and CTA buttons for her newsletter.

• A digital poster resized for her shop window and Google Business profile.

Impact:  Within an hour, Maya has a cohesive campaign ready to post across social and email. Her visuals look professionally designed and perfectly on-brand, no agency required.

👇 See Pomelli In Action

OpenAI Launches ‘Company Knowledge’ for ChatGPT

ChatGPT’s new “Company Knowledge” feature lets small businesses securely connect their internal tools like Slack, Google Drive, SharePoint, or GitHub so ChatGPT can answer questions using your company’s own information.

Every response includes a citation showing where the info came from, and grants access in accordance with existing permissions.

⚙ Access Level - Only Available Business, Enterprise or Edu plans

🗓️ Released October 23, 2025

🆘 How It Helps

It’s like giving your team a single, smart search bar for your entire business. Instead of jumping between apps and files, employees can instantly get context-aware answers, saving time, improving decision-making, and keeping everyone aligned with verified info.

🧩 Key Features of Update

• Seamless internal data integration: Connects ChatGPT to your company’s tools, such as Google Drive, Slack, Notion, Confluence, SharePoint, or Jira, so that it can access real-time business context.

• Context-aware Q&A: Ask natural questions like “What’s the latest on Project Horizon?” and get synthesized answers drawn from your internal docs and conversations.

• Source transparency: Each response includes citations showing exactly which files, messages, or sources the information came from.

• Permission-respecting intelligence: Honors your company’s existing access rules, so employees only see data they’re authorized to view.

• Conflict and freshness detection: If multiple sources disagree, ChatGPT highlights inconsistencies and can prioritize newer information when summarizing.

• Search & summarization power: Acts as a unified enterprise search summarizing, comparing, or extracting insights from across your connected systems.

• Admin control & governance: Admins can manage data connectors, security permissions, and usage policies from a central dashboard.

🏥 Example Use Case #1

Healthcare Provider — “Policy and Compliance Updates”

Scenario: A regional healthcare network, HealthyWay Clinics, frequently updates its insurance policies, telehealth procedures, and HIPAA compliance guidelines.

How it works: The compliance department uploads updated policy documents, state-level regulation summaries, and training manuals using Company Knowledge Update.

⚡ Internal staff use ChatGPT as an internal assistant to:

• Summarize compliance changes for different departments.

• Generate quick, accurate responses to staff FAQs (“What’s our 2025 telehealth billing rule?”).

• Draft patient communication templates that match the updated language.

🎯 Result:

• Fewer compliance errors from outdated info.

• Easier staff training with automatically generated summaries.

• Better internal alignment between clinical, billing, and admin teams.

🏥 Example Use Case #2

Retail Brand — “Seasonal Campaign Coordination”

Scenario: A lifestyle retailer, Oak & Willow, runs quarterly campaigns and frequently updates its product lines, brand tone, and social media strategy.

How it works: The marketing team uploads a brand style guide, a seasonal catalog, and a campaign brief to the Company Knowledge Update.

⚡ ChatGPT then helps different teams:

• Create social media content that uses the newest product names and prices.

• Write sales scripts for retail associates reflecting the current promotions.

• Update website copy and customer emails with consistent branding.

🎯 Result:

• Unified messaging across channels.

• Faster campaign execution without waiting for manual copy updates.

• Marketing agility, each seasonal shift is reflected instantly in AI outputs.

👇 See ‘Company Knowledge’ Demo

🕵️‍♂️ Feature Spotlight Deep Dive

Each week we Spotlight a feature from one the major LLM / and Generative AI platforms that can help you gain time and work Smarter Than Busy.

In this weeks edition we are talking about Custom GPTs inside ChatGPT.

Let’s dive in.

Custom GPTs (build a team of digital assistants)

GPTs have changed my life. Seriously! For this newsletter alone, I use six different GPTs that save me at least 4 hours per week and help me handle a lot more labor-intensive tasks involved in putting a newsletter together.

So, if you don’t know GPTs, here is a quick 101 before you dive into this week’s video Tutorial.

Think of GPTs as your own custom mini-LLMs (yeah, I know, that’s technically a contradiction, but you get my meaning). Each GPT is an expert in a specific function, goal, or workflow.

That’s what sets them apart from ChatGPT itself.

ChatGPT is the all-purpose assistant. A GPT is the specialist — built with your rules, your data, and your tone, so it delivers exactly what you need, and how you need it, on demand.

GPTs can help automate parts of your day-to-day business operations, and give you back time to focus on what really matters (be that more family time or more time to spend on areas of your business that move the needle).

If you are not already using GPTs, this week you should set aside some time to learn how to use them. Once you know, all you have to do is decide which Custom GPTs you will build to help you do more and win back more time in your day-to-day.

👇 Below are tutorials and resources to help you master GPTs this week:

• How to create a custom GPT: A beginner's guide (source Zapier.com)

• Guidelines for Writing Instructions for Custom GPTs (source OpenAI.com)

📚 Smarter Stack

Each week, I share plug-and-play resources from checklists and templates to actionable tutorials that help you build and optimize your Smarter-Than-Busy work stack.

Quick Start Manual for Writing Effective Requests: This is a cool resource that I came across this week. It’s a list of prompts for different business use cases. This is from Google, so the prompts work in tandem with Gemini and other Google products. But the prompts can be used in any LLM. 

Perplexity ‘Comet’ Tutorial by Shopify. The Perplexity browser “Comet” was released a few months ago, with the worldwide launch in mid-October. I have been playing around with Comet of late, and it’s already saving me a ton of time on day-to-day tasks. 

How to Use ChatGPT “Projects” - Beginner-Friendly. If you are not already using Projects within ChatGPT, you should start. I am going to do a deep dive in an upcoming edition. But this is a solid tutorial for beginners.

And that’s a wrap! 🎬

Thanks for spending a few minutes with this week’s Smarter Than Busy. I hope you found something useful, inspiring, or just plain interesting. I’ll be back next week with more insights, tools, and resources to make your work a little smarter (and your week a little lighter).

If this edition helped you, share it with someone who could use it too - let’s spread the smarter-than-busy vibes.