What do you do if your small business operations could benefit from artificial intelligence?

Whats your size? Like a tailor measuring for a bespoke suit, The first step is to precisely assess where AI can fit into your business to enhance efficiency or customer experience. This ensures the technology aligns perfectly with your operations and goals. 📏✨ Speak to 3 different Ai experts and understand the options and different pathways to learning and implementation - thats the important differention - learn and actioning

The first step in leveraging AI for my small business was to identify specific areas where AI could have the most significant impact. This involved understanding operational bottlenecks, client management challenges, and opportunities for automation. By pinpointing exactly where AI could enhance efficiency or improve services, I could focus my efforts more effectively. I like to look for tasks that I do frequently on a weekly basis as a starting point. Freeing up weekly time on my calendar has a big impact on allowing me to stay focused on higher leverage work.

When thinking about where to implement AI, start with these questions: - What are you not good at or not efficient at that's required for the job? - What low-skill tasks are being performed by high-salary employees? - What is very time-consuming but doesn't provide an equal amount of value? - What are the highly repetitive tasks in your organization that don't require a lot of variance? Use these questions as your starting points for AI exploration. Once you've solved these, then go to the next level and look at what you aren't doing today that you could be doing with AI.

Using AI can really upgrade your business. First, find where you need improvements, like in daily work or customer support. AI can help by automating simple tasks or making sense of data. Make sure it fits with your business goals for the best results.

To be brutally honest, I find the exercise of assessing our AI needs confusing because of 2 things. 1. I am not an AI expert with the skills to turn access to a LLM into an AI tool of my making. I will be relying on AI nerds to create cool tools. I also believe that I am in the majority. 2. Due to the fact we are in the infancy of the AI tool marketplace, I am not confident with most of the tools and companies offering solutions. If I was a super-early adopter of tech, I would be paying for lots of AI tools. Once again, I believe I am in the majority. Because of these 2 factors, I am unsure of which of my business needs can actually be met by existing AI tools. I play with AI, but I'm not ready to hand my business over

Research Your Options: Embarking on an AI adventure without a map is like setting sail without a compass. Thoroughly research which AI technologies best suit your business needs, considering factors like cost, integration, and scalability. 🧭🔍 Whats the key action you would like it to do ? A bot on the website or an interactive tool for marketing.

Once you know what you want from AI, start looking for the best tools. Check online for AI solutions that fit small businesses, and read reviews to see what works. Choose something that matches your budget and systems.

Like in Jack and Bean Stalk, Planting magic seeds and nurturing it to see how it grows in your garden is akin to experimenting with AI in small, controlled settings. This approach allows you to learn from what works and what doesn't, adjusting your strategy as you go. 🌱🔬

Try out an AI tool with a demo or small project first. See how it helps and if it's easy to use. Ask your team and customers what they think, and look at the results closely. This way, you'll know if it's worth investing more into it.

Agree 💯 that we all need to be testing AI tools and learning. 1. Learning more about AI writ large and what we and others are doing with it. 2. Critically thinking about how we can now...or could in the future...be using AI to improve our businesses. It's early days for the tech. Chat GPT 5 is on the way and is supposed to be light years ahead of 4. If things are going to keep changing this quickly with AI, anyone AI expert on LinkedIn who says they have the AI answer for our business is likely full of 💩 In 5 years, our businesses will be transformed by AI. Exactly how, is cloudy.

Equipping your crew with the right star charts and navigation tools before a voyage ensures they can steer the ship through unknown territories avoiding the rocks. Similarly, training your team on AI technologies is crucial for seamless implementation and maximization of its benefits. 🛠️📚

Dive into learning about AI with your team. Look for online courses or podcasts tailored to business needs. Reach out to experienced professionals for advice. Understanding AI’s benefits and how to apply it responsibly is crucial for everyone involved.

I am following social accounts and Google alerts of numerous AI industry leaders to level up my understanding of the tech and AI industry writ large. I am also following early adopters who are building and testing the latest AI tools. It's a firehose of info, and even if only 10% is truly sticking in my 🧠, I'm way ahead of most business owners. Would love to hear from others on who they're listening to

AI is the latest tool to emerge from the ever advancing technology, think of it as Google on steroids. It’s different in one big way, it’s rapidly approaching self learning and will probably be there by the time I finish this note. As far as business is concerned, it’s the same challenge, Innovate or Vegetate! Those who learn to use it to prosper will continue to be successful while those will fight it will loose in business. Learn it, adapt, improvise and improve

Becoming your industry's go-to expert, it involves adapting AI to create innovative solutions that distinguish your business. Stand out now and learn everything possible and then your industry will pay you lots to understand the benefits. Stay flexible and open to evolving your operations as AI technology advances. 💡🌠

Keep learning about AI and its trends to stay ahead. Be open to trying new things and working with others using AI. This way, you can keep your business competitive and growing.

In my business world - interior design - AI image creation tools are taking up all the space in the AI discussion...which is a huge mistake. There are a couple of interior design pros who are moving past image gen AI tools and discussing business applications, but just those two. Lots of room for other players to occupy the space and help designers integrate AI into the biz and leapfrog competitors

Data privacy should be a top priority in AI. It's crucial to realise that Large Language Model (LLM) providers can utilise your data for training their models.

Small businesses embracing AI face several cybersecurity risks: Data Breaches-AI systems rely heavily on data. If not properly secured, this data becomes vulnerable to breaches, potentially exposing sensitive business and customer information. Privacy Concerns-AI often processes vast amounts of personal data. Mishandling this data can result in privacy violations, damaging customer trust and exposing the business to legal repercussions. Lack of Expertise-Implementing AI without proper cybersecurity expertise increases the likelihood of misconfigurations or oversight, leaving the business vulnerable to exploitation.

One way AI has helped me and I’m barely touching the tip of what I could do - is with content creation. I can bulk create a month of posts for social media, blog posts - tweaked of course - research- I would like to learn more about video AI, scheduling with AI and assist with call management with AI.

The best advice is stated in the test and learn part of this post. Although they would like you to believe AI is ready, in many cases it isn't. Believe me I am glad we used this approach. You have to understand what it is you want AI to do for you, then see if you can find something that suits those needs. We do not create content using AI. Too high of a chance that it will be deemed duplicate content. As a company we no longer use AI to create videos. Nothing we have tried lives up to our expectations. There is no AI chatbox on our website. It is simpler to explain about anything in chat or video chat one to one. Know what you expect, and expect AI to deliver in a limited setting. If it can't move on.

As a bilingual person, I find AI only helpful in helping me with descriptions for my products. In finding the right persuasive wordings to make people click on my listings. For any other thing I use my own brain thank you very much. I will not let AI take over my LIFE. AND...I will not worship AI. That's really all I have to say about AI.