The Lola Squared blog
Practical, no-jargon writing on websites, automation, and using AI well — for people running real businesses.
It recommended a warning. It changed its mind after a staffer asked what the CEO called a leading question — and it had forgotten the handbook it wrote. The accountability never left the human.
Read postYour listing has two readers now: a person with eight seconds of patience, and a machine lifting a sentence to answer someone who never visits. They want the same thing. Six rules and three things to stop doing.
Read postThe ONS asked 38,637 businesses. Adoption has roughly tripled since 2023 and the number of tools per adopter has barely moved. If you have one and feel behind, you are the median.
Read postClicks roughly halve when an AI summary appears, and a quarter of those visits end the browsing session outright. The useful question is which of your pages exist to be clicked, and which exist to be quoted.
Read postAnthropic’s own guidance says the mark can appear on writing Claude didn’t author, and vanish from writing it did. It records provenance, not authorship — which is not what the coverage says.
Read postGoogle’s spam policy says the offence is unoriginal, low-value content — “no matter how it’s created”. So automation is not the problem. Here is the line between 400 useful listing pages and 400 doorway pages.
Read postHundreds of lots against a fixed catalogue date, and the one thing you must not do is make the lot look better. Standardise the setup, not the lot — and why your conditions of business do not cover a flattering photograph.
Read post7,600 fake GitHub repositories, 800 posing as AI tools. Claude Code, Gemini and ChatGPT each recommended one unprompted. The human glance that used to catch this has gone.
Read postThe published figures are written by people selling AI, carry no sources, and contradict each other. Five questions that get you a real number instead.
Read postThey live in about nine places and drift apart. Google shows your Business Profile, not your website — so the one you fixed isn’t the one they read. A fix before the August bank holiday.
Read postThe UK’s AI Security Institute has published what happened when test agents reached the real internet. Nobody told them to deceive anyone — and the lesson is about permissions, not peril.
Read postNewcastle researchers halved AI’s made-up answers without changing the model — they changed what it was reading. What that means for a small firm, and what it costs.
Read postApple’s new Siri is not coming to EU iPhones and there is no date. The four ways a tool leaves you, and six things that make a small firm cheap to move.
Read postThe complete ten-point policy, printed in full and free to copy — then why each line is there, and the four things to leave out.
Read postPostings are down about 10% — but AI-skill mentions are up 127% year on year while entry-level accountant roles are down 29%. Why you probably can’t hire your way out of it, and what to do instead.
Read postA chatbot waits to be spoken to. An agent does work when nobody’s watching. The difference changes what you buy, how you judge it — and the one question to ask any supplier.
Read postAn inbox is four different things wearing the same clothes. From an agent that sorts one every hour — what happens to each, and the rule it never breaks.
Read postReminders, boosters, insurance claim forms and repeat prescriptions eat the day. What an agent can take on — and the clinical line it must never cross, starting with triage.
Read postPortals bring you an audience today. Your own listing pages build something you keep. What each genuinely does well — and why the answer is both, with the canonical version on your own site.
Read postBroking is a judgement business wrapped in a paperwork business. The paperwork half an agent can take — renewals, mid-term adjustments, claims chasing, file notes — and the regulated half it must never touch.
Read postMost product-photo advice is about kit — and buyers never see your kit. What genuinely moves a listing, what makes no difference at all, and the one edit that quietly costs you money.
Read postEveryone asks whether AI will replace them. Almost nobody answers the more useful question — and time you haven’t decided how to spend quietly refills with more admin.
Read postMost people who give up on AI picked the wrong first job, not the wrong tool. A practical two-week plan — what to hand over on day one, and what to leave well alone.
Read postThe most important thing an AI agent does isn’t the work — it’s knowing when to stop and fetch a person. The hard rules, the warning signs, and why ‘suggest before acting’ is the safe default.
Read postThe bookings, enquiries, no-show reminders and review-chasing an AI agent can take off a restaurant — so your people stay with the guests, not the phone.
Read postYou probably don’t need to hire — you need the boring half of the week back. How a small team produces like a much bigger one, with a human still on the judgement.
Read postThe booking, reminders, recalls and form-chasing an AI agent can quietly take off a dental practice — while every clinical judgement stays firmly with your team.
Read postUsing AI doesn’t mean replacing people. Hand the machine the drudgery, free your team for the work they love — and let that craft be the edge no rival’s identical AI can copy.
Read postWebsites don’t go stale from neglect — they go stale from friction. A real small business that keeps its own site current, and why that’s the whole game.
Read postThe leaseholder correspondence, service-charge admin and compliance chasing an AI agent can quietly take off a block-management team — while money and judgement stay firmly human.
Read postNo-code tools build an agent in an afternoon — but building was never the hard part. What it actually takes to run one in a real business.
Read postAI tools are useful, but “plug it in and hope” is how the horror stories happen. Five quick, no-jargon checks — the sensible care that saves the “oh no”.
Read postThe best home for AI often isn’t another app — it’s inside the Slack or Teams your team already lives in. What an agent there does, and how to set it up safely.
Read postA model that’s cheaper per token can cost you more per finished job. The honest way to compare AI tools — by what a real task actually costs, not the sticker price.
Read post36 posts, just under 600 views, a heavy long tail where a few older posts do most of the work. The honest month-one data — and why small numbers are exactly what to expect.
Read postAsk ChatGPT or Google’s AI answers about your line of work — does it mention you, and are the facts right? A quick, honest self-check, and the things that actually help you show up.
Read postAn AI assistant, a virtual assistant, and a junior hire are three different answers to “I need more hands.” Here’s what each is genuinely best at — and how to choose without wasting money.
Read postYes, AI can make things up — “hallucination” is real. But that doesn’t make it useless; it’s a known failure mode you design around, keeping a human on what matters.
Read postSomeone rebuilds the same report by hand every week, from three different places. How an AI agent assembles and formats your recurring reports on a schedule — and why the “so what” stays human.
Read postRunning an online shop is a hundred small jobs stacked on top of selling. What an AI agent takes off — order questions, abandoned carts, reviews, stock — and what stays human.
Read postMost deals don’t die on a “no” — they die because the second email never got sent. How to automate follow-ups that stop the moment someone replies, without being annoying.
Read postWe turned the lens on ourselves: a month of AI-run cold email, the honest numbers, and the lesson nobody warns you about — getting delivered is the hard part, not the writing.
Read postRecruitment is a people business buried under admin. What an AI agent takes off a recruiter — scheduling, chasing, CV formatting, CRM updates — and the one line it should never cross: deciding who gets the job.
Read postYou can’t answer the phone up a ladder — and a missed enquiry goes to the next name on the list. What an AI agent catches for a builder, plumber or electrician (enquiries, bookings, quote and invoice chasing) — and why it’s most useful if it’s just you.
Read postAutomated support has a bad name — the maddening bot loop. But that’s bad implementation, not the idea. Where the line sits between annoying and genuinely helpful, what to automate, what to keep human, and the four rules for staying on the right side of it.
Read postA solicitor’s time is the product — and too much of it goes on work that isn’t law. The repetitive admin an AI agent takes off a firm (onboarding, chasing documents, deadlines, correspondence) — and the advice, judgement and client money it must never touch.
Read postProperty is a people business built on a mountain of admin. The repetitive work an AI agent takes off an agency — coordinating viewings, chasing references, answering routine enquiries, tracking compliance — and the valuations, negotiation and money to keep firmly human.
Read postMost of an accountancy week goes on chasing records, sorting documents and keying figures — not the accountancy. The repetitive admin an AI agent genuinely takes off a practice or bookkeeper, and the judgement, advice and sign-off to keep firmly human.
Read postIncoming supplier invoices eat hours of the same typing, matching and coding. How an AI agent reads, matches and codes them into the accounting software you already use — and the bit (approvals, changed bank details) to keep firmly human.
Read postStripped of jargon, it just means the repetitive marketing jobs happen reliably without you remembering. What it actually is, what you really need (not a HubSpot price tag) — and where the new EU AI rules do and don’t come into it. (Not legal advice.)
Read postFrom 2 August 2026 the EU AI Act’s transparency rules require some AI to be disclosed — chatbots, deepfakes, certain AI content. What that actually means for a UK business, what it doesn’t, and the simple honest response. (Not legal advice.)
Read postA scheduler only queues what you've already written — the real bottleneck is creating the posts. When a scheduler is enough, and when an AI that writes and posts for you makes more sense. (We run our own accounts this way.)
Read postData entry is the job nobody lists but everybody does. What it actually means to automate it, where it quietly costs you, how an AI agent moves data between your systems accurately — and what to keep human.
Read postWe run on AI agents — so we checked the UK search data to see what other businesses most want to automate. The honest list, from data entry to invoices to customer service, and what to keep human.
Read postAn AI agent can’t click around a normal website editor — it needs a site it can drive. Why most sites aren’t agent-operable, what makes one that is, and how this blog publishes itself.
Read postA plain, honest list of the jobs an AI agent can genuinely take off a small business — inbox, invoices, content, outreach, monitoring — and the bits to keep human. Most of it we run on ourselves.
Read postSell to people abroad? English-only listings are invisible to buyers searching in their own language. Why a translate widget won’t fix it, and how to get a real, indexable page per listing per language — without the manual grind.
Read postNo developer, no audit tool — just your phone and five minutes. Six quick checks that show whether your site is quietly losing you trust, and the one fix behind all of them.
Read post“Automate everything” is bad advice. The simple test for what to hand over, the repetitive work an AI agent genuinely takes off a small team, and the judgement calls you should keep human.
Read postA clean white background looks professional — until the cut-out goes wrong and the item floats with a halo round it. The four tells of a fake cut-out, and how to get a believable one at volume, without altering the item.
Read postFrom 2 August 2026 the EU AI Act requires deepfakes and AI-generated content to be disclosed — and it can reach some UK businesses too. A plain-English look at what changes and the simple honest response. (Not legal advice.)
Read postGoogle can only rank a page it can reach. Why items hidden behind a search box, a PDF or a portal stay invisible — and why a real page per item wins long-tail search, without the manual grind.
Read postA footer stuck on an old year quietly tells every visitor “nobody’s minded this in a while” — right when they’re deciding whether to trust you. Why it matters, the quick fix, and the real one.
Read postLate payment is usually a chasing problem, not a customer problem. How to make the chase automatic, polite and consistent — switch on what you already have, then let an agent handle the rest.
Read postYou don’t need a studio or a photographer for clean catalogue shots — just a way to remove the per-photo grind. How a phone snap becomes a consistent, listing-ready image at volume, without altering the item.
Read postPost a role only to the job boards and they keep the search traffic, the candidate and the credit — and it vanishes when the posting expires. Why a page per vacancy on your own site wins, and how to do it at volume.
Read postMost company blogs quietly die — fiddly to publish and invisible to Google. The three things a blog needs to get found, and how this one is set up.
Read postAn honest, no-jargon look at what an AI agent really does all day — what it’s good at, what it isn’t, and the repetitive work it could quietly take off your team.
Read postGeneric AI tools quietly “improve” the object itself — risky for antiques, where condition is the value. The never-alter-the-item approach, and getting from phone to catalogue at volume.
Read postFor most agents, listings live on the portals and as a filtered search — neither of which Google can really rank. Why a page per property wins long-tail search, and how to automate it.
Read postMost small-business sites aren’t bad — they’re stuck. The tells of a stale site, three fixes you can make this week, and the shift to a website you can simply talk to.
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