This month we asked you to ask us for insights regarding the adaptation of AI within your businesses. It’s clearly top of mind for many company leaders. Answering your Ask Us Anything questions this week in partnership with Optus Business is AI expert Barb Hyman, founder and CEO of one of Australia’s most quietly successful artificial intelligence companies Sapia.ai which raised $17m in its latest funding round. We have chosen three pressing questions from the many fantastic queries we received. We hope Barb’s answers will help at this pivotal moment of economic transformation: AI ain’t going away folks!
My advice to any business, big or small, is that rather than thinking about ‘having to use AI’; you need to ask, what is the business problem I’m trying to solve? Is it internal efficiency, your customer experience, or getting better or more leads?
Then do your research to figure out if there is simply a process change that’s needed, or whether there is a tool that can help you solve that problem. If there is a tool that uses AI, you want to evaluate it to ensure that it’s secure and compliant with the regions that you work in.
In saying that, some of the use cases where AI can be helpful in solving common problems for small businesses include content creation, for example, Canva has built AI into their existing offering, which makes it quick and easy to create social content. Using an AI-powered chatbot on your website to qualify leads or provide first-level support can be a great way to build efficiency into your sales or service processes while maintaining high customer satisfaction.
The AI Frontier by Steve Nouri on LinkedIn is a good spot to get the big-hitting stories or TLDR;AI will send you an email newsletter of the global AI news highlights, and new products or features that are launching.
I’d also recommend looking into industry-specific newsletters that will make AI much more relatable and relevant to the industry you work in, for example, my company Sapia.ai shares a newsletter on LinkedIn regularly specifically for HR leaders. Tegan Jones at SmartCompany also runs an excellent weekly wrap of startup AI related news in her newsletter Neural Notes.
And, of course, my personal newsletter on LinkedIn where I share my very real perspective on AI.
As always, when considering using AI you need to start with the business problem you are trying to solve. So rather than building an AI strategy; build your business strategy and then consider where or how AI might help you enable your strategic objectives.
The value that AI can bring to an organisation is far beyond simply automation. The ability to learn and improve over time is something that, when used in the right context, can supercharge business processes in ways that humans simply cannot.
When evaluating AI, there are some factors that you must consider, such as compliance, security, and fairness. At Sapia.ai, we built a framework called FAIR a couple of years ago to help organisations ensure that any AI they choose is unbiased, valid, explainable, and inclusive. This is especially important when AI is used in decision-making, either on its own or as an input to a human-based decision-making process.
The other important aspect of AI in any organisation is to become familiar with general AI terms and how they’re related to the sector of the business that you are using it in. In HR, for example, we’ve shared a Quick Reference Guide of common AI terms and definitions, and how they are used in common HR functions. Building this knowledge within your existing team is important for them to evaluate and implement any AI-driven solution that might solve their business challenges.
Read now: Finance expert Jason Andrew answers your EOFY questions
SmartCompany is proud to introduce Ask Us Anything: Connecting you to expert mentors, a new 12-part series in partnership with Optus. Each month, we’ll deal with a different topic around owning and running a small business. You’ll get the chance to send in your own questions for each theme and a business expert will answer three of them, offering their own insight shaped by years of business experience.
At Optus, we understand that running a small business is no small feat. Optus keeps you and your business connected with 24/7 online support, an award-wining network and access to a community of business experts. When your business needs support, we’re all in.
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