NEWSLETTER: Finding the right AI solutions for your business
Spoiler alert: try a bunch of different ones until you find the ones you like the best.
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🎓 AI 101 for small business owners:
With so many AI options out there, and MANY more popping up each day, it can be hard to know which specific AI solutions are best for you and your business.
What are your options?
You basically have three different options when it comes to using AI solutions:
OPTION #1: Get something custom-built
This is the most expensive option however it would allow you to get a solution customized to your specific needs. You can seek out a tech company, agency or freelance developer that could do this for you.
OPTION #2: Use one of the main AI applications (LLMs)
These are the AI players that tend to get the most buzz in the media these days (i.e. ChatGPT/GPT4, Claude, Bard). Those companies have inputted a massive amount of data into what is called a large language model (LLM). Then, when a human makes a specific request, AI provides a human-like answer based on the data it has access to.
Some are easier to use than others but I’ve found many of these AI products can be a little challenging to navigate and tend to be geared towards a more advanced technical audience. But they can be a good option if you are looking to go directly to the AI foundation.
OPTION #3: Find a specific tech solution that has been built on top of one of those main AI foundations
There are thousands of tech companies that have been launched using the framework from the major LLMs to address specific AI needs. These companies will use the foundation built by one of those main LLMs and then make some tweaks and adjustments to come up with their own AI product that is specifically suited to their target market.
For example, in the very first AI for Small Business newsletter I mentioned VenturusAI, an AI solution that was designed to give you extensive feedback on a business idea (it’s still one of my favorite AI programs I’ve used so far). I had listened to an interview with the founder and he said he used ChatGPT as his starting point and then spent around 50 - 100 hours on prompt engineering until he got ChatGPT to provide what he considered to be the ideal results for what he was wanting to accomplish with VenturusAI.
So while you can go into ChatGPT and ask it to provide feedback on a business idea, I think it’s a much better option to use VenturusAI knowing that the time has been spent by someone A LOT more tech-savvy than I am to come up with the best possible results.
Overall thoughts:
I’m personally about 50/50 with using the LLMs directly or using tech solutions built on top of those LLMs. Here are my overall thoughts on all three options:
Option #1: Custom built - I don’t have the need to get anything custom built so I have no firsthand experience in this area, but I think this could be a good option if your business can benefit from it and can afford it. Also, keep in mind there might be government grants that could help cover the cost of getting something built for you, so that’s something you could look into if you think a custom solution could be good for your business.
Option #2: The AI foundations (LLMs) - Some of the LLMs have worked well at times, although it did take me some time when I first started using them to figure out how to enter good prompts to try to get the best results. Unfortunately, I’m increasingly finding the quality of the results to be not as great as they once were and I’m seeing AI hallucinations popping up more frequently.
Option #3: Tech solutions built on an existing LLM - Some of the tech solutions have been great (like VenturusAI) while others have been rather underwhelming. But finding those good ones, the ones that are user-friendly and provide top-quality results, is like hitting the jackpot.
I’m finding it fun to try out different AI options to see if there are any I might like better than the ones I’m currently using and also to see if I can find more ways to utilize AI for business.
It kind of feels like the early days of parenthood when you don’t have a clue what you’re doing but you try different things in an attempt to figure out what’s best for you and your baby. You get suggestions from other parents who are raving about their results but when you try what they recommended, it doesn’t work for you. And that’s because every child is different, just like every business is different. And AI is constantly evolving, so what might work great one day may end up not being so great the next day, and vice versa.
Ok, maybe that’s not the best analogy but essentially what I’m trying to say is that using AI is a constant work in progress and ultimately only you will know what works best for you and your business by testing different options until you find the ones you like.
🛞 Test Drive
Who: Bing
What: To analyze online reviews
I had seen someone mention that one of the ways AI could be used for customer service was to sort through customer reviews to see what the top complaints are. This would be beneficial for the types of businesses that would receive a lot of reviews online like restaurants, short-term rental properties or different types of service providers.
I wanted to try this out but I didn’t want to focus on anything negative on a business that wasn’t my own. So instead I decided to do this test based on something positive.
Using that same concept of having AI search through Yelp reviews, I wanted to see what the top recommended dishes are at one of my all-time favorite restaurants: The Bottle Inn in Hermosa Beach, California.
How it worked:
I searched for The Bottle Inn on Yelp and then copied the link.
I initially tried to enter a prompt with that link in ChatGPT but I got this response saying that it cannot directly access or browse external websites (which I find odd because it’s my understanding that it gets its data by “scraping” a gazillion websites online).
So instead I went into Microsoft Bing and here is what I got:
Verdict: This was a fun way for me to use AI to search Yelp reviews but using AI to search negative reviews would be really beneficial to business owners who want to gather information about the biggest complaints people are making about them so they can try to improve in those areas.
You could also use AI in this way to see what people are saying about your competitors so you can provide superior service. Or if you’re planning to start a business, you can research the complaints of similar businesses so you’ll know from the start what not to do.
KEEP IN MIND:
Some people are perpetual complainers and you’ll never make them happy, so try not to let them affect you if their complaints are ridiculous.
But also keep in mind that some business owners can let their egos get in the way and can be dismissive of negative feedback. We all know how hard it can be to have someone criticize your business because, to go back to the parenting analogy, your business is your baby. Make sure you are willing to accept some constructive criticism and keep an open mind to the areas of your business that have room for improvement.
🗞️ Headlines
Here are some headlines you might find interesting:
Microsoft, Google integrating more AI into products - CBS News
If AI is the new electricity, every business should have access - Fast Company
What is Microsoft Copilot? Here's everything you need to know - ZDNET
👋 Who am I and why am I writing this newsletter?
My name is Melissa Hopper and I’m a small business consultant and entrepreneur. I’m not an AI expert but rather an AI enthusiast who became curious about how AI could help me in my business and help my clients in their businesses.
I decided to start this newsletter to share what I’m learning and what my clients are learning about how AI can help small businesses. To learn more about what I do, click here.
🙏 Thank you
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⚠️ Please be aware that AI service providers continuously update their programs and services. As a result, some of the information discussed in this newsletter may have changed by the time you read it.
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