The Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), in collaboration with Coach.Win, hosted an event to educate small business owners about the possibilities AI tools can bring to themselves and their companies. On July 23, 2024, at the Coach.Win Learning Center in Omaha, attendees heard from event organizer John Lund of Coach.Win, and guest speakers Boaz Ashkenazy of Augmented AI and Sridhar Sunkara of eBiz Solutions.
According to Lund, the goal of the event was to expose business leaders to current use cases of AI and spark conversations about how AI-powered tools can give small and medium-sized businesses a competitive edge.
Here are five takeaways from the event:
1. AI is increasingly becoming the norm.
More and more businesses are experimenting with and incorporating AI and its capabilities into their operations. In the near future, startups and large enterprises may find themselves having to answer AI-related questions from investors and executives, such as, “How do you plan to use AI to increase efficiency?” Companies that resist or avoid these changes risk losing both the benefits of AI and the support of influential ecosystem members if they don't pay attention to AI trends. Whether you're an AI supporter or skeptic, understanding current AI trends is essential to prepare for these questions.
Lund suggested thinking of AI implementations like the beginning of the internet. While it may have been considered far-fetched or otherworldly compared to traditional practices when it was first released, the internet is now a common tool for data management, marketing, communications, customer service, and more. AI appears to be following a similar path.
2. AI is a tool to stay competitive.
One way to think about AI is that it is a program that senses patterns and processes language. AI is efficient at analyzing data, completing repetitive tasks, and making predictions based on prompts (such as extracting specific data from extensive contracts or identifying repeating answers in survey forms). AI frees up companies to spend time performing tedious tasks that they can then spend on other things.
AI can stimulate brainstorming and act as an additional collaborator for tasks like coming up with more expressive copy for marketing campaigns. AI can also free up employees’ schedules, freeing up timelines for additional projects among team members.
3. AI is not perfect, and humans need to step in when it fails.
AI continues to learn and improve, but is not always accurate. Answers it provides may be completely fabricated to fulfill a request or based on repetitive use rather than factual accuracy. AI software requires repeated learning and correlating data to produce more accurate results. As with any internet search, background research, citing sources, and seeking expert advice serve as additional safeguards.
Additionally, AI currently lacks the creative, ethical, and emotional human thinking required for decision-making and application. While certain job functions may be consolidated or eliminated, the role of overseeing the data inputs and outputs of AI tools and their application will need to persist.
Four. There are steps you can take now to prepare for the AI future adopt.
Before jumping into full AI implementation, founders and business leaders can start researching and experimenting with available free AI tools such as ChatGPT. A possible first step is to create a task force of individuals to explore different types and stages of AI. Task force members can help other employees become familiar with the tools available.
Leaders should work with their organization's IT department or hired consultants to implement rules and security measures to prevent company data from being compromised when uploading files to these services. Companies can also begin to record, organize, and manage the data they want AI to eventually have access to, such as surveys, meeting notes, various applications and contracts, and investigate AI-enabled programs to leverage for record keeping.
Five. Educational events, coaching and resources are available to help you learn.
From online courses organized by universities like Harvard, to modules created by tech companies themselves, like Microsoft, or even local Meetups, individuals can take steps to improve their understanding of AI concepts.
