Leveraging AI Solutions to accelerate your business
With the introduction of ChatGPT to the masses at the end of 2022, AI has taken the world by storm!
We are at nothing short of a crossroads as rapidly emerging AI technologies transform all aspects of our digital life from smart phones to web searches to business automation.
If you run a small business the question is — how can AI solutions help my business be successful? How can I utilize these technologies in an effective way? Which ones make sense for my business?
Well these are the questions every small business owner should be asking right now because the way we do business going forward is changing rapidly.
Since the release of ChatGPT these technologies have become much more mature and are now at a point where they can be very effective at a wide range of tasks. This includes not only natural language and information retrieval but also image, voice and video generation.
Current AI models can analyze complex data, generate detailed charts and reports, write content and summarize and process large amounts of data to extract meaningful information.
The bottom line — There are numerous applications for this technology for small businesses. In fact, it is a game changer!
Such applications can dramatically reduce the time you spend to accomplish business tasks as well as open up the potential for new products and services.
So what exactly can AI do for your business?
The answer is — A LOT!
The specifics depend on the type of business you have and how you accomplish your work currently.
However there are several applications which are of wide spread use.
Customer Service
We’ve had customer service chatbots for some time now but until recently they have been very limited and could only respond to preprogrammed questions.
Current AI models allow a much more rich experience here with full conversational engagement and the ability to respond to any question the customer has for which the AI has information.
In addition, customer service AIs can be given more capabilities than just answering questions. They can access information from a database to lookup a customer order, process a refund or return or sign up a user.
These functions along with their language ability make them much more like a universal employee. They can even function in multiple languages allowing you to provide service worldwide. We now also have the option of chat, voice and video bots to assist users most effectively.
Sales
Similar to customer service, AI can help increase sales by increasing customer engagement, generating leads, creating advertising and analyzing sales data.
AI Chatbots are not just for customer service because they can be trained with ALL of the knowledge of your business or products and when someone visits your website an AI Chatbot can be available to answer their product questions and help them understand your services better thereby creating two-way engagement immediately before they even get in contact with you.
Lead generation is another powerful function to enhance sales because an AI model can initiate contact with potential customers by email, phone or text taking over cold contacting and allowing you to focus only on high potential leads.
Most businesses spend quite a bit on advertising and AI tools today are fantastic at creating an advertising campaign. They can create ads for social media, email newsletters and even print.
Fine tuning your sales strategy is always a challenge for businesses often because they don’t have the time or resources but an AI tool can analyze all your sales data, customer data and marketing strategies and give meaningful feedback on where to improve or identify untapped potential with certain products or client pools.
Automation
AI tools are being used to more easily automate repetitive business tasks as well such as data entry, updating databases and spreadsheets and generating emails or other communication.
Just about any repetitive business task can be automated with an AI solution including account and bookkeeping tasks, inventory management and ordering, and scheduling and project management.
Data Analysis
Given that AI systems can process and understand large amounts of data at once they are excellent at helping us find and extract meaning from the mountains of data that we produce.
If your business involves crunching data then AI is your friend whether you are trying to understand sales trends, customer satisfaction or breaking down a complex problem.
Any sort of scientific work is going to benefit enormously as AI systems are being used for data cleaning and organization, automated data collection from many sources and real time analytics and reporting.
Training/Learning
AI systems can help with training employees, learning new skills or tasks and evaluating competence.
An AI learning platform can create a personalized learning experience where material is presented and then the system can answer questions about it and act as a tutor increasing retention of the material.
Chatbots can do walk throughs of products or training materials and quiz employees on their knowledge while identifying weak points and creating training tailored to address them.
If your business involves teaching or learning, current learning platforms leverage AI to create a curated experience adapting to the level of knowledge and the way a particular person learns best.
In addition to these there are likely specific applications that are relevant to your unique business.
Ok but how do we create and use these solutions?
The good news is that has gotten easier and easier and today there are many ways to build all types of AI solutions to accomplish any of the tasks above and many more.
Most of us have heard of OpenAI the makers of ChatGPT. They offer the ability to create custom GPTs and assistants that can be trained with any kind of data and can be connected with abilities like searching the internet, processing files and performing essentially any function that we can create instructions for.
These custom assistants can be used on ChatGPT’s website whether you are a free or paid member. However in most cases a business will want to integrate such a solution into their own website, office or workflow. For that we can build an assistant that can be integrated fully into your existing infrastructure. This way AI solutions become part of your business rather than just an add-on.
OpenAI’s tools are currently the most developed but there are a growing number of alternatives. One of which is Anthropic and their Claude model. This model is as powerful or more so than ChatGPT and offers a free and paid tier as well. They also offer the ability to create custom assistants and integrate them.
Another major AI contender is Google of course, with their Gemini model which is quite advanced especially if you pay for the more expensive Ultra version. Google AI solutions are found built into many Google tools such as gmail and gsuite so you may already have some experience with it. These models are also being highly integrated with android devices as well.
However for custom solutions I would say Google’s tools are less polished and versatile than OpenAI and Anthropic but that will likely change.
What this all comes down to is ensuring your ongoing success as a small business by effectively leveraging AI tools to stay competitive, free up time and resources and open the door to new possibilities.
However to do this one must understand how to incorporate these technologies into their business in a way that produces the results desired.
For that there are two options: hire an expert or learn to do it yourself. Both are valid depending on your situation.
A tech consultant or AI developer can assess your business requirements and help you find solutions with these tools that are truly beneficial. They will know what tools to use, how to develop and customize them for your specific needs and how to seamlessly integrate them into your workflow.
A consultant will also do an evaluation of your business and processes so they understand exactly how to tailor these solutions to meet your needs effectively.
As these technologies become more accessible and polished it is certainly possible to learn them in a way that allows you to create and integrate these solutions yourself. This depends on how much time and energy you have and how complex your needs are.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic have extensive documentation on their sites and there are many tutorials on Youtube and other platforms that will allow you to learn how to create and deploy these technologies.
However you go about it one thing is certain, no business will be unaffected by AI and those that are will not likely survive the transition we are experiencing.
Now is the time to understand this tech and how to use it to your advantage!
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