Slowinski's Pyramid: Where to Start With AI

The number one question CEOs ask me: “Where do I start with AI?” The answer is Slowinski’s Pyramid - a prioritization framework we developed over three years of AI transformation at Trilogy.

The Three Levels

Base (Start Here): Repetitive tasks nobody wants to do. Support tickets, email triage, bug fixes, data entry, renewal processing, report generation. These are high-volume, low-creativity tasks that consume enormous amounts of time. AI handles them well, the ROI is immediate, and nobody misses doing them.

Middle: Things you’re not good at. Coding when you’re not an engineer. Design when you’re not a designer. Legal review, financial modeling, content creation, data analysis. AI turns your weaknesses into capabilities. You won’t be world-class at these tasks, but you’ll be competent enough to move forward without waiting for a specialist.

Top: Urgent tasks with tight deadlines. Big project, short timeline. AI compresses timelines dramatically. Product specs that took multiple days now take an hour. Board decks that took a full day take 90 minutes. When the pressure is on, AI is your force multiplier.

Why This Order Matters

Starting at the base builds confidence and creates measurable wins. When the team sees that AI cut support ticket handling time by 60%, they stop being skeptical and start being curious.

Starting at the top (urgent tasks) creates pressure but no foundation. People use AI as a panic button, not a daily tool.

Starting in the middle (skill gaps) is frustrating because the quality bar is unclear. You don’t know if the AI-generated code is good enough because you’re not an engineer.

Always start at the base. Build up.

Real Examples

At Trilogy, our base-level wins were:

• Customer support tickets: 80% now handled by AI
• Bug triage and initial fixes: automated
• Data entry across three product lines: eliminated
• Email responses to common questions: templated by AI

These freed up hundreds of hours per month. That freed time became the fuel for middle-level and top-level AI adoption.

Applying This to Your Company

Map your operations onto the pyramid. List every task in your company that falls into each level. Start with the 5 biggest time-consumers at the base. Build AI solutions for those first. Measure the results. Then move up.

The framework works because it creates momentum. Each level of success funds the next level of ambition.