In my last column, I addressed the questions many companies have been asking themselves over the past few months:
“Are you ready for AI?”
In most cases, major companies asked this question several years ago. Most early adopters are large companies with large budgets. Leading companies are also joining the AI race, using AI for everything from customer service to sales to recruiting.
But for the rest of us, small and medium-sized businesses around the world, the AI revolution is just beginning. Many of us aren't just asking if we're ready to adopt AI, we're specifically wondering how to get started.
How much does it cost? Will it be overtaken by competitors? How do I get started?
While every company is different, the journey to becoming an AI-enabled business is similar for all companies.
As I talked about in the previous column, the first step is “AI assessment.”
The goal is to proactively identify a company's challenges and opportunities and determine whether AI can address them. While there are common themes around where AI can help, the list itself is unique to each company. Factors related to your industry, budget, long-term goals, and company culture should all be considered.
Once you have created a list of challenges and opportunities that an AI-based product could potentially solve, the fun part begins.
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Now is the time to take a closer look at all the AI tools available and determine which ones will give you the most “bang for the buck” for your company’s needs. The final result will be the “AI Tech Stack”.
Here are just a few examples of the tools that make up our AI Tech Stack.
- sale: We decided to automate some of our email marketing using HubSpot ChatSpot (an AI-based chatbot for websites) and Apollo.ai.
- accounting: We take a closer look at Booke.ai, an AI-based accounting tool that automates and streamlines common financial tasks like accounts payable and bank reconciliations. We plan to do further testing to determine if this is suitable for our needs.
- marketing: We already use a variety of AI tools to help manage our social media accounts. But we decided to try out MarketMuse, an AI tool that helps us analyze and perfect the specific content we generate.
- Productivity: We've been using ChatGPT to save time on common tasks like creating PowerPoint presentations and creating meeting agendas. This is working well, but we plan to add Microsoft Copilot as it improves. This will help you save time using Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook.
Once you have your AI technology stack in place, the final piece of the puzzle is what we call an “AI roadmap.”
An AI roadmap is simply a plan of attack for implementing an AI technology stack. Learn about the prioritization, timing, and project planning required to implement each tool into your organization's operations.
So that's it.
The path to AI is to assess your needs, decide which AI tools will meet those needs, and plan how to deploy them.
Are you ready for AI? This is an important question every business leader should ask themselves. If the answer is no, then it's time to get serious.
JJ Rosen isAtiba, becustom software development company andNashville IT support company. visitAtiba.com For more information.
