Plain-English guides to AI for small businesses.
What the terms mean, what to ask a vendor and where a first project starts. Written by NEXIRT engineering, with the primary sources linked at the end of each guide.
What is a forward deployed engineer?
A forward deployed engineer (FDE) is a software engineer who works inside your business, next to the people who do the job, and builds software and AI around how the work really runs. Unlike a consultant, an FDE ships working systems. Unlike a vendor's support team, an FDE is not tied to one product. At NEXIRT a custom engagement starts with a 1–2 week Discovery Sprint that ends in a working prototype and a fixed-price quote.
Reviewed October 7, 2026Read the guideAI integration for small business: a practical guide
AI integration means connecting a language model to the tools and data you already use so it does one defined job, such as drafting replies, routing requests or answering questions from your documents, while a person approves anything that leaves the building. It is not a chatbot added to a website. For a small business the safe path is one workflow, a working prototype, and a fixed-price quote before any build.
Reviewed October 7, 2026Read the guideAI copilot vs AI agent vs chatbot: how to choose
A chatbot answers in a chat window. A copilot answers and drafts from your own documents and systems, cites its sources, and leaves the decision to a person. An agent goes further: it calls tools and takes steps toward a goal within limits you set. Choose by who acts. If a person acts on the answer, build a copilot. If the system acts, build an agent, with approval gates.
Reviewed October 7, 2026Read the guide