Entering the World of AI Business - Need more Clarity

I need some honest guidance from people who are actually building in this space.

I’m deep into AI automation/agents / n8n, etc., but I’ve hit a wall conceptually.

Most of what we learn is tool-first. We know how to build things — but when it comes to business applications, things get blurry fast.

So I’m trying to get clarity on one core question:

If I want to help B2B or D2C companies with AI, what should I actually be building first?

Not hypothetically. Not “AI can do X, Y, Z”. But in the real world.

Some specific things I’m stuck on:

For B2B service businesses, what outcomes should AI realistically help them achieve first? Faster sales? Ops efficiency? Decision-making? Something else?
For D2C / SaaS brands, where does AI actually create leverage early on, ops, support, analytics, forecasting?
What are the first systems that make sense to build before getting fancy with agents and automations?

Right now it feels like: