Starting and running a small business can be hard. The many administrative tasks and necessary workforce needed to keep a company running are crucial, yet can tire even the most passionate business owner. However, developments in AI are on the horizon that could make the day-to-day tasks of running a small business much easier.
What is AI?
Artificial Intelligence, commonly known as AI, involves developing computer systems that can perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. These tasks can range from simple ones, like recognizing patterns, sorting, or performing calculations. Or the tasks can be more advanced, such as understanding language or recognizing images.
AI technology uses various methods, including machine learning and deep learning, to absorb and learn from large amounts of data to continually improve. This allows AI systems to make predictions, recognize patterns, and make decisions without explicit programming or instructions.
Think about how many smartphones can now identify people in photos. The more photos we take, the smarter the AI program becomes at categorizing people’s faces. That’s how AI works. More data equals more accuracy.
And now AI is becoming more advanced and more interesting. Programs like ChatGPT and Midjourney are two AI programs that can create original text and artwork, respectively.
This is a photo from AI program Midjourney. The prompt given to AI to create this image was — If bears were your hiking buddies and didn’t eat you in the wilderness.
A paragraph by ChatGPT. The prompt given to AI to create this paragraph was — write a paragraph about a cat in the style of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
AI and Small Business
But what does AI have to do with small businesses? Well, for one, AI programs can help make small businesses grow. Think about a restaurant that uses an automated voice message to inform customers about the opening hours and location of their restaurant. What if in the future, this AI conversation technology gets even better? Instead of a voice message, it’s an AI speech program, and it’s like you’re talking to a real person.
“It’s almost like you’re giving small businesses an army of living employees,” explains Balaji Padmanabhan. Padmanabhan is a professor and researcher at the USF Muma College of Business. He’s also a member of the USF Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a research and education center that collaborates in AI research in fields including business, healthcare, industrial engineering, genomics, and more.
And potentially AI can do even more. Sending response emails to customers. Answering phones so companies appear to be open even when they’re not. The possibilities could be endless. It will be especially useful to help newly formed businesses grow.
“Helping them [small businesses] scale in a way they couldn’t do before. That is something to look forward to,” Padmanabhan remarks.
And people are already testing the limits of AI. Recently, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, had AI chatbots work on a project for 30 minutes. In that time, two chatbots, Bing and ChatGPT, were able to create market research, a website, an email campaign, a logo, and a video. The professor admits that humans would have, of course, created better content — but they couldn’t have done it at this speed.
And that’s the opportunity and problem with AI at the moment. Your small company may be able to utilize AI to do the tasks of an entire workforce, but at the moment, you still need humans to edit and clarify the content AI creates.
The state of things now
How close are we to having a small business being run by a few humans and a couple of AI programs? Well, AI programs are definitely here, but they aren’t all winners.
“If you look at generated AI apps and plugins,” Badmanabhan explains, “There are hundreds that are coming up. It’s hard to keep track of. It’s a very rapidly evolving space.”
He’s seen a lot, but none that really stand out. We’re not ready to let AI control the bulk of the work required to run the administrative side of a business. Yet.
Larger companies, like Google and Microsoft, first need to create the AI programs that will then be used by smaller companies. Remember the large data sets we mentioned before? We need large companies that have access to large amounts of data to create accurate AI programs.
Padmanabhan believes that these large data sets, for example, the entire Internet, will allow larger companies to create AI products that can be used by everybody. AI startups focused in Silicon Valley are getting funding and we may start seeing changes happening fast.
“I think Google and Microsoft will make it [AI] very easy for small businesses to use.”
Ensuring fairness
Charging AI programs with things like responding to emails, scheduling, and customer communications could make it possible for anyone to start a company with just a skeleton crew.
But that’s only if these AI programs remain accessible to everyone. If these larger companies and startups don’t make these programs affordable, it might result in an unfair advantage for certain companies.
“Hopefully it’s not set up in a way in which very quickly certain people become winners and certain become losers simply because of access to AI to do things better,” Padmanabhan explains.
It’s something policy makers and business owners alike need to watch out for. Because AI and small business could be the partnership of the future.
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