Naples marketer develops AI tool for small business

For small service providers, the ability to respond to phone calls quickly and consistently is a fundamental need. But they usually can’t compete with larger companies that have round-the-clock staff and systems in place to answer and route calls.

In the age of artificial intelligence, that’s starting to change. A Southwest Florida marketing professional, Kyrin Hall, developed an AI-driven system designed to level the playing field for the area’s service-oriented businesses, startups and entrepreneurs.

Hall, founder of Naples-based Digital ShortCutz Marketing Agency, calls her service the Conversion Velocity Engine. Its signature feature is a virtual 24/7 receptionist, call router and booking agent aimed at converting leads into sales with enterprise-level efficiency.

“It’s really about supporting an entrepreneur,” says Hall, a self-described lifetime entrepreneur. “That is where I came from, that is what I know. So, that is the language that is familiar to me … I truly believe in business owners, and I truly believe they are the backbone of society.”

Hall started selling her Conversion Velocity Engine a few years ago to local businesses. It gained wider recognition at the 2026 Edison Awards, an international convention celebrating innovative products available in the marketplace. Hall’s service won a bronze award at the Edison Awards gala in Fort Myers in April.

“I almost fell through the floor,” says Hall when she heard it was a finalist.

About six years earlier, Hall said, she had yet to found Digital ShortCutz or even imagine her AI-based service. The COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 ended her international travels, and the AI boom had yet to begin. Hall left Amsterdam, where she lived at the time, due to the pandemic and the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, and followed her parents to Southwest Florida, where they are longtime winter residents.

“COVID forced me to rethink, ‘Where do I want to go?’” Hall says.

With her wide-ranging background in media, including work as an actor, television host, health consultant and public speaker, starting a digital marketing agency made sense.

According to IMDb, Hall’s acting credits include a string of supporting roles throughout the 1990s, such as the character Heller in the 1995 television series “TekWar,” directed by William Shatner; an anonymous henchwoman in the 1998 comedy feature film Half Baked; and a stand-in for supermodel and actor Naomi Campbell in the 1999 film Prisoner of Love.

By 2022, a few years after Hall started Digital ShortCutz, generative AI was on the path to ubiquity as the defining technological revolution of the era. Hall recognized the technology offered a solution to a persistent problem faced by her small-business clients: a relative lack of speed in their response to leads.

However hard they tried, there were usually gaps in service. They might not be immediately available at 8 p.m. on a weeknight, a July 4 holiday or any other odd time when someone found them on Google.

“You can’t answer them tomorrow; they’re already gone,” Hall says. “It’s the person who can scratch the itch first. So, that’s where the idea came from: If I could be 24/7 without being burnt out myself, or having the money to hire 5,000 people, what do I need?”

Hall offers several levels of service, from the Engine’s core features to more comprehensive digital marketing packages. Her AI receptionist performs tasks such as giving clients quotes or, if they are ready to buy, routing them directly to a business owner.

Hall said the Conversion Velocity Engine isn’t a fit for everyone, and she continually works to improve the system. She has an “intake” process for businesses that includes discussing how and whether it could benefit them.

In addition to generating leads, Hall envisions her service as a way for entrepreneurs to optimize their schedules, potentially leaving time for a healthier life. Hall is a self-described wellness enthusiast who also enjoys running marathons in her spare time. She traces her interest in health to an awareness of her family history of illness, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

“If I’m very, very honest,” she says, “I was probably chasing kind of my own mortality.”