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Most business owners will be well aware that the adoption of artificial intelligence products is happening at a rapid pace. The technology has been around for a lot longer than ChatGPT (the OpenAI bot that kickstarted this “boom”), yet since its release in 2022 there has been a massive wave of investment, launch of similar products, and AI tools have been added to just about every digital product you can think of.
Of course, there has also been a lot of hyperbole and overreaction. Most commonly, there are the scare stories that AI will lead to mass unemployment. This is obviously a concern, yet it is ever thus with technology. Back in the 1980s, similar stories appeared with the arrival of the personal computer in the office; back then, we were told that those working as typists (on typewriters) would face layoffs. The typewriter did, of course, disappear, but people adapted to new roles.
Businesses must explore AI adoption
For businesses, the challenge is a little different, but there are similarities to what is happening with the labour force. In the tech industry, for instance, there is a new mantra: “AI won’t take your job – someone using AI will.” It calls back to the idea of adoption and if we can provide a more crude way to put it, it basically says, if you can’t beat them, join them.
The issue, perhaps, for some businesses is that it is not always clear what purpose AI will serve. The majority of visibility on the internet seems to be pointless stuff, such as making images for social media. There are AI tools with much more statistical purpose, helping users do everything from working out the most efficient way to plan a holiday to creating advanced algorithms for horse racing betting. Yet, if your business is, for example, a hairdressing salon, it’s not quite clear what AI can do for you.
Yet, there are many things that AI can do for nearly every type of business. For example, let’s take the concept of running a hairdressers in Birmingham. There are AI tools that can let clients upload photos of themselves, adding different hairstyles and colours before they decide on their next style. AI chatbots can manage booking systems, matching clients up with their preferred stylist and ensuring that the correct products are in stock for them. On the business owner side, AI can help with marketing and client retention, with everything from social media posts to automated contacting of clients who haven’t rebooked their usual appointments.
The above is just a small taste of what AI could do for a specific business, and you’ll note that none of the activities really need to come at the cost of a human job; it just makes the business a little more efficient and smart. Yet, there are several caveats. The first is that there is no single AI tool that does all of the above. You can’t simply ask ChatGPT to start running your hair salon in this manner. Second, enterprise-focused tools are relatively expensive, and if you need to purchase several of them, the costs will likely outweigh the benefits.
It’s worth trying free AI tools
So, why then do we recommend that all businesses start to adopt AI? Well, it’s simply a matter of getting in at the beginning. You can think of this as being like the start of the 1990s – do you remember how many people and businesses were reluctant to get online? And do you remember the ones that got left behind because they could not see the power of an online presence? The famous example is Blockbuster video stores, which got “digitally disrupted” by Netflix, but there are countless other examples.
And here’s the rub: We don’t recommend – with some exceptions – that every type of business should start signing up and paying for expensive AI enterprise software systems to manage their inventory or AI marketing tools, but we do recommend that business owners start experimenting with AI tools, even if they are free. It could be free AI accountancy software or simply having a look at the GPT Store (it’s basically OpenAI’s app store) and seeing which tools might match up with their business.
A lot of those in the tech industry say that we are still at the “dial-up internet” phase of AI, meaning we haven’t even touched the surface of what the technology can do. It may be the case that looks like a foolish statement, and it may even be the case that AI has diminishing returns in how much the technology evolves from this point, but that feels unlikely. It’s much more probable that the businesses that start using it now – even just for curiosity – will be the ones ahead of the game years from now.
