The HeitechSoft Newsletter
Every quarter: what we built and learned, the wins worth sharing, and the AI developments that matter to mid-sized businesses. Each year closes with an annual review.
2026
HeitechSoft Quarterly: Spring 2026
February to April 2026
This quarter, we turned AI conversations into systems that clients can test, and in each one AI does the reading, research and drafting while a person keeps the decision. Our lead story is a language-training company whose sales system was built and tested in five weeks, with a second phase signed on April 20. Our lab notes cover an AI tool that reads mill test reports and hands uncertain results to a person, a tender-matching proof of concept built in days, our own AI prospecting, and when AI is not the answer. Our wins include a finalist spot for the Guelph Chamber of Commerce’s Innovation Award, a hands-on AI workshop for a network of realtors, and an AI hiring tool we built for ourselves that now screens for others. This issue covers five industry developments, including BDC financing for smaller firms adopting AI and Microsoft’s Copilot Cowork.
Read the issue →HeitechSoft Quarterly: Winter 2026
November 2025 to January 2026
This quarter, AI became how we build, and owners came to us for the strategy. Over the holidays we built our own AI hiring tool with an AI coding agent and used it to screen the real applicants for our Sales Manager search, with a person making every decision. In the lab, an AI coding agent had a shipping prototype running 15 minutes after its specification, though the client’s payback sums said no; a manufacturer’s CEO assumed our AI-made video used real people; and an AI coding agent built a community group’s door-prize app. Our wins: an aerospace engineering firm asked for a monthly AI session through 2026, a Kitchener accounting firm went from a two-hour AI session to a phased plan, and a language-training company began an Efficiency Edge Discovery. We also cover six AI developments, from Ontario’s new AI-disclosure rule for job postings to Microsoft’s lower Copilot price.
Read the issue →2025
HeitechSoft Quarterly: Fall 2025
August to October 2025
This quarter, we moved from telling owners what AI can do to showing them. Our lead story is the public launch of AI Explained, with a website drafted live at a Greater KW Chamber of Commerce lunch and sessions tailored to each owner's own work. In the lab, we used AI research for personal outreach with a person checking every email, had an AI agent build a restaurant group's inventory prototype in under three hours, turned a script into an AI-made ad video in an afternoon, and built a board of AI advisers. Our wins include the Chamber's Expert Exchange, a Waterloo hotel group's management team choosing its first AI pilot, and an article on Canada's AI paradox. Our AI for mid-market section covers five industry developments, including Statistics Canada's survey of AI plans and OpenAI's company knowledge feature for ChatGPT Business.
Read the issue →HeitechSoft Quarterly: Summer 2025
May to July 2025
This quarter, AI did more of our building, and we started teaching owners to do the same. An AI coding agent wrote the code for three new websites from our written briefs, one of them a working site in under five hours, and we soft-launched AI Explained, one-on-one AI coaching for business owners and leaders. In the lab, a custom AI now drafts our Efficiency Edge reports, a family-run HVAC contractor tested our demo assistant against a free AI tool, we started making marketing videos with Google’s Veo, and we built an AI persona from real interviews for a newcomer-services study. We also cover an AI crash course for a Waterloo hotel group, talking AI careers with Grade 7 and 8 students, Tom’s article on owning AI rather than renting it, and six AI developments that matter to businesses of 20 to 200 people, from Canada’s 44th-of-47 ranking for AI literacy to ChatGPT’s new agent.
Read the issue →HeitechSoft Quarterly: Spring 2025
February to April 2025
This quarter, businesses started asking us for AI that knows their own business. We built our own demo chatbot on the City of Kitchener’s public website, trained on more than 500 pages, that answers residents’ questions in the language they ask in. An Ontario concrete contractor then signed with us for an AI assistant that answers from its own documents, project history and past quotes. In the lab, we are sponsoring two Humber College student teams to fine-tune a Canadian AI model, giving ChatGPT and Gemini the same proposal to write, and testing AI clones of our own voices. We also cover the Greater KW Chamber of Commerce budgeting for AI training, our acceptance into NVIDIA Connect, and seven AI developments that matter to businesses of 20 to 200 people, from Shopify’s AI-first memo to Cohere’s privately run model.
Read the issue →HeitechSoft Quarterly: Winter 2025
November 2024 to January 2025
This quarter, AI moved from our lab into real work, at a client’s office and in our own. In our first Efficiency Edge assessment, for a family-run HVAC contractor, AI drafted the report from the interviews we recorded on site. It showed one dispatcher spending about four hours a day copying data from one spreadsheet into another, work a single button could replace. After the beta, Efficiency Edge opened to clients in January. Our R&D team compared Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry hands-on, and started building our own assistant that answers from our project files. We also ran more of our own business on AI, from Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI meeting notes to a website agent that captured its first lead and an AI review of our new office lease. We spoke to about 15 CEOs at the Greater KW Chamber on the risks and rewards of AI, and recorded a podcast on our pivot to AI. We also hired our first employee, an analyst chosen for AI skills, with AI video interviews
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