You can’t read the news these days without hearing something about artificial intelligence (AI) and how it’s going to change the way we all live and work. As a small business owner, it can be difficult to discern the good uses of AI from those that could hold you back.
So, we’ve picked out two of the best ways for small businesses to introduce AI into their workflows, as well as two of the pitfalls to watch out for when using this kind of technology.
AI advantage 1: improved efficiency
In any business, there are many repetitive, routine tasks that AI can automate, freeing up your time and that of your team to focus on more important work. Examples include data entry, dealing with routine customer enquiries and transcribing notes from meetings.
AI advantage 2: faster data analysis
It’s well known that AI can sift through vast datasets faster than any human, often uncovering patterns and insights we can miss. Harnessing technology to uncover these insights will give you more information with which to make decisions and create strategies to grow or scale your business more quickly.
Potential pitfall 1: ethical concerns
There is a lot of debate around who biased (or not) AI models are, as well as about the transparency of their decision making. If models are trained on data that contains social biases, these will be replicated – and therefore perpetuated. So, you can’t take everything AI produces as “right”. It needs to be approached with critical thought.
Potential pitfall 2: data privacy risks
AI tools like ChatGPT are constantly learning from what users feed into it. So, it’s important to understand data privacy in this respect. Make sure that any AI tools you use in your business are GDPR compliant and if in doubt, get business IT support to help you decide which AI tools you can safely introduce.
