Artificial Intelligence (AI): An office assistant who doesn’t drink your coffee, but might accidentally schedule that important meeting for 3am!
I’ll admit right upfront, I’m not a tech guru. Not even close, but I’ve always been fascinated with new technology, and the newest tech on the block now is AI. Actually though, it’s not so new. In the movie “The Imitation Game”, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, a real English mathematical genius whose work on AI began during WWII. In the 1950’s, researchers at Dartmouth College held a conference to discuss the possibility of “thinking machines” and are credited with the founding of the field now known as Artificial Intelligence.
At its core, AI are computer systems like ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot, and are programmed to learn based on billions of inputs and programmed to keep learning by analyzing vast amounts of information. Despite what you may have heard, AI doesn’t think like humans, but predicts patterns, and processes information based on what it’s already learned. AI has no emotions, like humans, but uses mathematical models and statistical analysis to make its predictions and decisions.
As a small business, how can AI be integrated to help you achieve your goals? There are a variety of ways you can deploy this amazing technology to grow your business, handle mundane tasks, help you ideate, manage inventory or function as your virtual assistant. In fact, there are so many ways, the few I noted below are just a sampling of how AI may be able to help revolutionize your business.
1. Use it to generate ideas: I’ve always been creative, but even my creativity sometimes needs a jumpstart. I use ChatGPT when I’m struggling with writing a blog, creating content for social media, or need ideas for the children’s books my wife and I write. I’ve learned to ask the same question in different ways to get different takes on the same concept. For example, if I’m writing a blog on how to use promotional products effectively, I might ask, “How do companies use promotional products?” Then I might ask, “Tell me how effective are promotional products”. And finally, “Why do promotional products work?” These are all asking basically the same thing, but I’ll get enough material to get my creative juices flowing. A warning: I never, ever, ever, copy and paste complete answers I get from ChatGPT. I take what it gives me and use my own words to flesh out the ideas. Pro tip: to avoid ever being accused of plagiarism, always take what AI provides and put it into your own words.
2. Content creation: I know I struggle with finding new ways to engage on my social media sites. Using AI can help you brainstorm ideas, assist in writing content, develop new strategies, and even generate visual images related to your topics. On the video front, some AI programs create videos from your prompts, text, and images and even go so far as to create an avatar that can read a script, making an engaging and captivating presentation. There’s even AI software to help you create amazing PowerPoint presentations when you need to present ideas and engage with audiences. The downside of this though is people use AI to create “deepfakes”: images, audio, or videos of real people doing things they normally wouldn’t, to ruin reputations and cast aspersions on their enemies. Needless to say, always use AI to help, not harm others.
3. Improve the customer service experience: Ever gone on a website and seen a chat box pop up? Chances are, you aren’t speaking with a human, but with a chatbot. Why would a company use a chatbot instead of a human to converse with customers? This AI technology has the ability to instantly interact with customers, answer questions, troubleshoot issues and for more complex problems, bring a human agent into the chat. It reduces response times, is available 24/7, and can handle multiple queries at the same time. And, these smart chatbots learn from each interaction, so they become more accurate with each response. For small businesses with minimal employees, this frees them up to handle other tasks while the chatbot handles the online inquiries instantly and effectively.
4. Inventory management: Managing physical inventory can be a time consuming and costly process. Using AI can up your game with alerts when inventory levels drop to a certain level and even reorder supplies when needed. It can guide you with the best warehouse layouts for your location and streamline shipping to attain the best rates. For customers, AI can recommend products, show a 360-degree view of items, and even offer virtual try-ons of apparel using augmented reality. Using historical sales data, AI has the ability to predict future demand for particular products, especially for seasonal purchases, to ensure you have enough inventory when customers need it. Using AI to manage inventory can raise efficiency, reduce costs, and increase profitability while offering customers a better experience.
5. Virtual assistants: AI powered virtual assistants have been around for a decade or more and are quickly changing the way small business owners work. The amount spent on virtual assistants in 2024 was reported to be $13,53 billion and is expected to grow to almost $120 billion by 2033! My youngest son owns a landscaping company and has a virtual assistant answer calls to his business. A friend who’s interacted with the system says the responses are very accurate. Depending on what you need, virtual assistants can create quotes (based on customer input and past data), log expenses, send invoices, draft emails, create social media content, organize files and many other mundane tasks. While there is a cost for the service, virtual assistants offer a way to get more done while saving time and money, neither of which small businesses have enough of.
I’ve always been a fan of science fiction, which has more often than not predicted the actual future. I was with a friend recently and when they spoke into their watch, I mentioned the comic strip detective Dick Tracy. Beginning in 1946, Tracy had a two-way wrist radio he would wear while fighting crime. The first smart watch…in 1946! AI has been woven into science fiction for decades and now it’s a part of our everyday lives.
Not everyone is a fan though, and for good reason. As the old saying goes, about computers, “garbage in, garbage out”. AI starts with the data it’s fed and learns from there. If misinformation goes in, then the learning becomes biased and can affect the predictions AI makes. There is a valid concern for AI putting people out of work, especially low-skilled workers, call center operators, and many other industries. So far there’s not been a surge in layoffs due to AI replacing workers, and many experts contend more jobs will be created than are lost.
It’s imperative companies at the forefront of this technology vigorously test their systems and monitor them to ensure issues that arise are dealt with quickly. A lack of transparency, manipulation of the systems, legal and regulatory issues, and biases in these systems could all wreak havoc in the coming years. AI can be a real boon for humanity, and it’s up to those developing the systems to put in place a system of checks and balances that help mitigate risks that are all too apparent.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said, “Technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.” A nice thought, but as AI becomes more and more integrated into our lives, it’s important we understand what’s happening and how it works, even at the basic levels. Entrepreneur Mark Cuban said recently, “Artificial Intelligence, deep learning, machine learning — whatever you’re doing, if you don’t understand it — learn it. Because otherwise, you’re going to be a dinosaur within three years.”
The message should be loud and clear; the world is changing rapidly. AI isn’t the future, it’s the now, so harness its power in your business and grow in ways you never thought possible.