Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in today’s tech and office technology thought leadership. Everyone seems to be aware of the capabilities of AI, but some might not know how to apply these powerful tools to practical everyday work.
Do you know how to use AI technology properly and responsibly? You might think you do, as many of these tools promise intuitive user experiences and time-saving power. However, if you’ve ever typed in a too-vague or awkwardly worded prompt, you know using AI can have a learning curve.
Here’s an overview of how to properly use AI in business, examples of practical applications, and the current state of AI and machine learning.
What Are Some Practical Ways to Implement AI In Your Job?
You might have noticed that most cloud services are moving towards AI to enhance user experience and functionality. One of the primary uses so far is automating repetitive tasks like editing for grammar or spelling, organization, scheduling, and note-taking. This technology has huge time-saving potential in jobs like content creation, project management, automation, and data analysis.
Content Creation
Content is a pivotal force in many business marketing and engagement strategies. Whether you regularly create blogs, social media posts, email campaigns, professional letters, proposals, or other materials, AI can simplify editing. It's often time-consuming to edit for grammar and spelling mistakes. AI tools like Grammarly or Hemingway can scan text to find errors and suggest fixes.
Data Analysis
You should always have human eyes look over data to spot inaccuracies, outliers, biases, and other snags in objectivity. However, AI tools can help you interpret large data sets to create summaries for your stakeholders.
This has the potential to save you hours of work going over information to spot trends and formulate conclusions.
Project Management
If you've ever tried to find white space in multiple busy schedules for a meeting, you know scheduling assistants can be a lifesaver. Much like an executive assistant, AI can quickly align your teams and project goals with the time and resources you have at hand.
Administrative Tasks
Administrative tasks can be a productivity killer, especially for busy leaders who wear many hats. By automating processes, you can reinvest the time saved into more pressing business tasks.
Remember, like any other example of AI in business, you should monitor performance and accuracy. This ensures a smooth integration into the way your business operates.
How To Get the Most Out of AI
Despite its name implying it is smarter than humans, this technology comes with many flaws. Since AI is still largely in its infancy, it cannot interpret nuanced human commands with any consistency. For example, even the best AI tools for small businesses can steer you in the wrong direction if given imprecise or poorly-worded commands.
Questioning is an essential skill in teaching AI how to answer your question, and it can save a lot of time. When you utilize "ask and answer" AI tools like ChatGPT, your questions should be:
- As specific and detailed as possible
- Worded in a literal, clear way
- Free from any ambiguity or redundancy
For example, instead of asking "can you give me a list of IT jobs?", ask "can you give me list of 5 common job titles related to cybersecurity that would be found within outsourced IT companies?". This transforms your question into a precise command rather than an open-ended question with multiple possible interpretations.
Through precise questioning, you can save yourself time and avoid getting wrong answers back from AI tools. In this way, the key to leveraging AI effectively in your business processes is to approach it like you would an untrained intern. AI can help with simple, repetitive, and other wise time-consuming tasks just like an intern.
However, you need to teach it how to respond. This means knowing how to ask the right questions from the start.
Will AI Replace People’s Jobs?
Although there is fear that AI will render some jobs redundant, remember that nothing can replace human connection. Machine learning cannot perform work as accurately, thoughtfully, or creatively as a person, and likely won't come close for a long time.
Business applications of AI can certainly make people's jobs simpler by performing time-consuming tasks. Yet, just like film couldn't replace the experience of live theater as many feared in the early 1900s, AI cannot replace real human voices.
Think about how you conduct client service. Would you rather receive an AI-generated thank you message or a handwritten note from the owner of a business? Most would say the latter, as nothing beats sincerity in business.
What Are Some Things to Keep in Mind as I Use AI?
Business applications of AI are designed to help you work smarter, not harder. However, they cannot do the work of a human as accurately, thoughtfully, or creatively as a person.
This is why it's critical to be smarter than AI and use your human intuition and critical thinking skills to edit. Never rely on AI for publicly facing projects, always fact-check, and never hit send without reviewing.
Data Security & Permissions Issues
Unfortunately, many businesses have a "set it and forget it" mentality for IT configuration. This means your user permissions might not have been updated for some time. If you don't update security settings for AI tools, this can give current or former users unauthorized access left over from old permissions.
It's also crucial to implement an AI use policy for your organization. This should address data security practices and discourage employees from revealing sensitive company or personal information to AI platforms for business activities.
User Friendliness Issues
AI is a very new technology, learning as an infant would from their environment. Therefore, it will expand on any human error found within its scope of knowledge (a.k.a the internet) Think of it as a power tool to replace a hand tool.
The first people to use power tools likely cut their fingers off, since there was no standardized way to use them yet. As time goes on, we will learn how to use AI as any other power tool, leveraging it in more effective ways as it advances.
Originality & Complications with AI
It's important to remember that AI copies what it finds online. This means that using unedited AI-written content is considered plagiarism. Many colleges have implemented anti-AI policies for papers and other written projects for this reason.
The issue of originality in content creation is important. AI may give your competitors identical outputs with similar prompts, so use it sparingly with public-facing content like social media.
Final Thoughts on AI & Business Management
There are countless AI business strategies involving things like content generation, predictive analytics, and even customer service through AI-powered chatbots. It can help your business save time and cut down on labor hours for repetitive tasks. This can improve productivity overall.
Just like any Star Wars fan will tell you, there's a light side and dark side to everything, AI included. The possible negative effects of using AI should not stop you from using it. Instead, they should encourage you to learn how to use it correctly.
If you're interested in revamping your business technology to get the most out of what the digital age has to offer, click the button below to speak with an IT expert.
