Serving Ottawa & area — in person or online
I set up systems that take busywork off your plate, train your people to use AI properly, and get your business found on Google. I'll come to your shop — or we do it all online.
No pressure and no jargon. If AI can't help your business, I'll tell you that too — it's a free half hour either way.
Everything I recommend is something I run in my own businesses first. You're not the test case.
Bookings, invoices, follow-up emails, reports, social posts — set up to run on their own, so you spend your day on the work only you can do.
Real example: the Barrhaven Bugle — a neighbourhood news site my AI team researches, writes, and publishes on its own, every day.
Hands-on AI training at your workplace or online. Your people leave knowing what to use, what to avoid, and how to check the work.
Real example: I teach roughly 300 members every week in my own training community, and my books are the course materials.
When someone asks Google or ChatGPT for "a good plumber near me," you want to be the answer. I set up your website so both find you.
Real example: an Ottawa handyman gets about half his jobs straight from Google search. Zero ad spend.
An honest read on what would actually help your business, what's hype, and what to do first — with a plan you can act on.
Real example: I run my own products on these tools, so the advice comes from practice — not slides.
Everybody throws these words around. Here's what they actually mean, without the jargon.
It answers
You ask, it answers. Good for the questions your customers ask over and over — hours, prices, "do you do this?" It talks, but it doesn't do.
It follows steps
A recipe card. It runs on a timer, or kicks off when something happens — a form comes in, an invoice lands — and then walks the same steps, the same way, every time. Perfect for work that never changes.
It decides
The cook. Hand a cook a recipe and they make judgment calls as they go — taste, adjust, substitute when something's missing. An agent reads the situation and decides the steps. That's what lets it handle work you'd otherwise do yourself.
Pick the one that would save you the most time. That's usually the right place to start.
Here's one I run for clients today: they email photos and website changes to a special inbox — and their website updates itself. No dashboard, no passwords, no new app to learn. If your business can send an email, it can run an agent.
Most businesses need a mix of all three. That's my job: figure out which is which for your business, build it, set it up on your systems, and show you how to check its work. It starts with a free chat.
A free 30 minutes. Tell me how your business runs and what eats your time. Phone, video, or coffee — your pick.
I visit your shop, office, or job site — Kanata to Orleans, Barrhaven to Gloucester — or we share screens, and I look at how the work actually happens before I recommend anything.
A plan you can run with on your own, or I build the system, set it up on your machines, and show your team how to use it.
My favourite
I handle the technical setup, then train you and your team to run it yourselves. You own it — you're not renting me forever.
You bring the business knowledge, I bring the build. Your team learns as we go, and takes over when it's running.
For owners who just want it handled. I build it, operate it, and report to you — the way I already run systems for local clients.
Real local businesses, real results you can go check right now.
Handyman services · Ottawa & area
Website and hyperlocal SEO. Today about half his jobs come from people finding him on Google — and he spends nothing on ads.
ottawahandiman.ca →Home daycare · Ottawa
Website, local SEO, and parent-resource content — built so Ottawa families searching for childcare actually find her.
thebritishnanny.ca →Neighbourhood news · Barrhaven
A local news site run end-to-end by an AI team I built — it finds the stories, writes them, and publishes on schedule, every day.
barrhavenbugle.ca →I spent a career in the Canadian Armed Forces as an analyst — taking hard problems apart and briefing them straight. That's how I handle AI too: no hype, no "game-changers." If something won't pay for itself in your business, I'll say so.
One example you can check: this website publishes its own AI news summary every morning at 9:15 — researched, written, and posted with nobody touching it. It's been doing that every day. If a helper like that would be useful in your business, that's exactly the kind of thing I set up.
I've written several books on using AI that double as my training materials, and I run a weekly teaching community of about 300 people learning to build with these tools.
Based in Ottawa. In person across Kanata, Orleans, Barrhaven, Nepean, Gloucester, Stittsville, and Gatineau — and online everywhere else. English and French.
A daily AI brief in plain English, and a weekly column on AI failures — because knowing what doesn't work is half the job.
That's the right question — and it's exactly what the free half hour is for. You'll leave with a straight answer, including "it can't," if that's the truth.
Email: jay@barkerhrs.com
Ottawa, Ontario — on-site across the region, online everywhere. English and French.