Making AI Accessible for SMBs
The hype is over. The hard questions are just starting. Join us at the Bellevue Club for a practical, vendor-neutral session on getting real ROI from AI - without handing your intellectual property to a public model you do not control.
Your team is already using AI. The question is whether you can see it.
Every leadership team on the Eastside has watched AI go from novelty to normal in about eighteen months. Adoption did not wait for permission - it arrived through browser tabs, personal logins and free tiers. For most small and mid-sized organizations that means real productivity gains sitting alongside real, unmeasured exposure.
Your IP may already be out there
Free public AI tools can retain and learn from whatever your team pastes in. Contracts, pricing, client records, code, board papers. Nobody signed off on that.
Shadow AI is the new shadow IT
Unapproved tools, personal accounts, no audit trail, no policy, no visibility. You cannot govern what you have never inventoried.
Context is everything
AI without your business context produces generic noise. AI wired into your processes, data and standards produces genuine leverage.
Built for business leaders, not IT specialists
This session is for you if you are:
- Owner, C-Suite or Management of a Seattle-area business
- An operations, finance or HR leader carrying the workflow burden
- Accountable for client data, compliance or intellectual property
- A manager whose team is already using AI without a written policy
- Being asked “what is our AI plan?” and wanting a better answer
What this is not:
- A vendor pitch or a product demo
- A developer deep-dive into models and prompts
- A theory session - you will leave with usable material
- A hard sell. Come for the content, stay for the conversation
Six things you can act on next week
One hour of straight-talking content, then the room opens up. No slideware for the sake of it.
Where the ROI actually is
The workflows that pay back first, and the ones that quietly burn budget.
Finding and killing shadow AI
How to inventory what your team already uses without shutting productivity down.
Your data, their model
What public AI platforms do with what you type, in plain English.
The one-page AI policy
What a workable acceptable-use policy contains, and how to get it signed off.
Context is the moat
Why your processes, data and standards are the thing that makes AI valuable.
Governed adoption that sticks
Private, workflowed AI your team will actually use instead of working around.
Presentation, then food, then a proper conversation
Our speakers
Two speakers, both hands-on. Expect straight talk from people who deal with these decisions inside Eastside businesses every week, not a scripted keynote.
Dallas Stewart
Dallas leads the CMIT Solutions team in Bellevue, looking after IT, security and now AI governance for businesses across the Eastside. He spends most of his week in the same conversations this session covers: what AI is safe to use, where it actually saves money, and how to get a policy in place without stalling the business. Expect plain answers and no geek-speak.
Ray Rasmussen
Ray Rasmussen is the Founder and Managing Principal of rGen, Inc., a consulting firm focused on AI-driven business transformation. He is a seasoned technology executive with deep experience in business transformation, AI strategy, and enterprise consulting.
Ray brings a practical, results-oriented perspective to AI transformation, helping organizations apply emerging technologies to drive measurable business outcomes.
Leave with a plan, not a reading list
AI Acceptable Use Policy template
One page, plain English, ready to adapt and issue to your team.
Shadow AI discovery checklist
A practical sweep you can run across the business next week.
ROI scoring framework
A simple way to rank your first three AI use cases before you spend anything.
A clear data-exposure picture
Where your information actually goes when staff use public AI tools.
Straight answers, locally
Direct access to a Bellevue-based team that does this daily, plus a room of peers facing the same calls.
A room of peers, not a lecture theatre
Small enough that you can ask the awkward question, big enough that you leave with two or three useful contacts.
Register for September 24
Attendance is free but capped by the size of the room, and allocated first come, first served. Tell us a little about what you want out of the afternoon and we will shape the Q&A around it.
We confirm every registration by email within one business day.
