To the editor:

St. Louis Development Corporation’s Aug. 18 Bidding & Estimating Academy is built around a discipline every business understands: a project is only profitable if the full cost is counted. South County businesses should apply the same rule to artificial intelligence.

AI can save time on estimates, customer messages, marketing copy and routine office work. But first-pass speed hides the minutes spent checking facts, correcting tone, restoring context, handling exceptions and repairing downstream errors.

For 30 days, keep a simple rework log. Record the time an AI-assisted task appears to save, then subtract verification and correction time. If a workflow saves ten minutes up front but creates twelve minutes of repair, it is not productive.

Crestwood’s continuing arrival of new businesses along Watson Road is a reminder that local competition rewards reliable execution, not fashionable tools. Before expanding AI use, owners should also name a human who still approves prices, customer promises, hiring decisions, sensitive data use, and public claims.

AI can help South County firms. It should earn a larger role by improving the whole job, not merely the first draft.

Gleb Tsipursky

Columbus, Ohio

Editor’s Note: Gleb Tsipursky, PhD, a behavioral scientist, CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, and author of The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press, 2026).