AI is having a moment. While it’s been with us since the 60s, tinkering away in the background of all sorts of systems, the arrival of generative AI – also called GenAI – has brought it into the mainstream. A core difference? These modern tools are usable for non-technical people. You don’t need to be a coder or even a tech whiz – simply type a question into a box and watch your text generate.
GenAI applies to so many tasks, especially when it comes to making life easier and faster for small business owners.
What is GenAI?
GenAI does just what it says on the box – it generates new content by drawing from a data bank. While there is GenAI that lets you create new images, audio and even video, the tool getting the most hype is ChatGPT. Its capacity to generate readable, natural text in response to questions makes it incredibly useful in any area of business you care to point it to. There are other GenAI text platforms, such as Google’s Bard, and there are surely more to come, but for now, ChatGPT is the leader.
So, how good is it? Well, judge for yourself. The following bit of text was cut and pasted out of ChatGPT. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great example of the power just waiting to be harnessed.
We asked: Write an introduction to a blog about how small business owners can save time with generative AI.
Chat GPT: With generative AI, small business owners can automate repetitive tasks, generate creative content, make data-driven decisions, and enhance customer experiences – all with a fraction of the time and effort typically required. Whether you run an eCommerce store, a marketing agency, a restaurant or any other small business, the possibilities for leveraging generative AI are vast and promising.
5 ways GenAI can save you time.
Imagine what you could do if you had a junior worker who was free, incredibly fast and always connected to the internet? That’s the potential of generative AI. Here are five ways you could use it to win back your precious time.
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1. Creating or editing writing.
ChatGPT says: AI language model, I can assist you in speeding up writing for businesses in several ways.
Creating content for sales material, social media, email marketing and blogs can be so time-consuming for small business owners it often means they don’t do it at all. While GenAI hasn’t come so far that it can do everything for you, it can get you off the white page to start your task.
It’s as if you’ve asked a very junior person to write a blog for you – you know the outcome will still need major work, but it’ll mean you’re not starting from scratch. You can even use the same words to brief the AI as you would a person – AI reads your natural language too. Here’s how to use GenAI as your time saver in writing content.
Generate social posts and blogs.
Streamlining your marketing using AI has never been simpler. Cut and paste a news article, one of your web pages or blogs, specify the platform, angle and tone you’re looking for, and the AI will use it to generate new content.
Come up with ideas for content.
When you’re cranking out articles or social posts week after week, it can feel like you get to the bottom of the barrel quickly. GenAI can help you come up with new ones – just enter your industry, your specialty or an area of interest. You’ll end up with a bunch of posts to choose from, which you can edit to suit your tone and then schedule.
Create meta descriptions and excerpts.
You can spend a surprising amount of time boiling an article down into short snippets that will work as meta descriptions or excerpts – super important for your SEO. In contrast, GenAI can create draft metadata for you in seconds – cut and paste your article, explain what you’re after, and then edit the result to suit.
Simplify or shorten text.
If you want to share more complex or technical sides of your business, GenAI can help you simplify text for a lay audience. Start by copying and pasting the original text and describe what you want back – tell the AI your word count and the reading age – and it will generate the copy.
Create pitch documents, user guides and reports.
Rather than agonising over pages of text, have GenAI create the first draft. Enter your notes, tell the AI the style, length and purpose of the copy you want back and watch as your draft is generated for you.
Draft executive summaries.
Copy and paste your entire document and ask the AI to create an executive summary. Note any key messages you especially need to highlight, and the AI will include these in your draft.
2. Get quick answers to questions.
ChatGPT says: I can quickly search for relevant information and provide answers, saving the business owner time from having to research themselves.
While Google has long been the go-to tool for research, GenAI can speed up that process. Instead of searching Google for a list of potential venues for a staff holiday party, you could get a GenAI tool to scout for you. Ask for a list of your competitors, find local cleaning companies or caterers, ask about significant trends in your industry or find stats to back up a point in your customer newsletter.
3. Summarise complex texts.
ChatGPT says: I can help you summarise complex and long text by quickly extracting the most important information using natural language processing and machine learning.
Generative AI is good at rewriting existing information in a new way. That makes it incredibly useful for understanding new or complex information. Struggling to understand some new tax legislation that might impact your tax return? Have GenAI summarise it for you.
You should still always read the full text – the AI will almost certainly misrepresent some nuance or leave out something crucial – but having the summary will give you context before tackling the full document.
4. Troubleshoot IT or business issues.
ChatGPT says: I can help you troubleshoot IT issues by providing relevant and accurate information, step-by-step instructions, and helpful tips based on my extensive knowledge and expertise in the field.
Business DIY has never been easier, thanks to the breathtaking array of easy-to-use software, but that creates new challenges. When you can’t quite figure out how to do something yourself and don’t have an expert readily available, you can spend hours trying to solve one small issue.
For example, if you’re struggling to upload product images to your eCommerce site, ask a GenAI tool for help – it’s probably easier than scrolling through hundreds of conflicting Google results.
5. Find smarter ways of using your software.
ChatGPT says: Microsoft Word’s AutoText lets you create reusable blocks of text or even whole documents and save them as AutoText entries to quickly insert them into any document.
Buried within the software you’re already using, there are incredibly handy time-saving functions – but you’re not using them because you don’t know how or even that they exist. Jump onto ChatGPT or another GenAI platform, name your software and ask for time-saving tips. Many of them will be features you already use, but keep asking for more, and you’ll find some gems.
For example, if you want to send automated email reminders using your accounting software, ask GenAI for step-by-step instructions.
Manage the limitations and risks.
While GenAI will only get more sophisticated, robust and secure, we’re still very much in the early days. ChatGPT, the most advanced and reliable of the programs, is still only in research mode. The tool’s home page even features a disclaimer that the tool may generate incorrect, harmful or biased information.
Here’s what you need to be careful about:
It’s not great at jokes, sarcasm and humour.
At the moment, GenAI isn’t all that great at understanding subtext, sarcasm or double meanings, so it’s easily confused by them and struggles to come up with wit, puns or jokes. If your tone of voice needs that, you must weave those elements in yourself.
Potential for bias.
AI looks smart, but it was trained on words written by humans, who, like all of us, have a biased worldview. It’s unlikely you’ll get anything outright offensive back, but it will never be neutral – even if that’s just about what the bot leaves out.
Chattiness doesn’t feel all that chatty.
If you want to speak to a particular audience in their everyday language, you’ll find that GenAI can’t do that very well. It will err on the side of more formal or corporate speech, which you’ll need to edit to up the human-ness.
It has access to limited data.
AI doesn’t have access to all information everywhere and, in many cases, is looking at a surprisingly limited data set. For example, ChatGPT doesn’t know anything that happened after September 2021 unless you specifically give it the information.
It can be inaccurate.
Before using anything you get back from a GenAI tool, you need to look carefully for typos and misspellings. You should also double-check that the information is correct – something may be technically correct, but it can miss the nuance of a topic or be citing opinions as fact.
They own your data.
If you’re using a free version of any AI tool, scrutinise the terms of use before you write anything into it – there’s every chance that whatever you input will become the property of the bot developers. That may not matter if you’re using it to ask basic questions, but don’t share sensitive information – you’ll have no control over who can see it or how it is used.
How to get started.
The most popular, accessible and reliable GenAI tool at the moment is ChatGPT. While other tools, like Google’s Bard, have emerged, they’ve been beset by problems and the developers are still working out the kinks. Dall-E, an AI image generator, is more of a time-waster than a saver, but fun to play with and a sign of what’s to come from these technologies.
To start experimenting with ChatGPT directly, you can sign up for a free account through developers OpenAI here. You may find GenAI popping up as part of your software tools. For example, Google Docs and Canva have a writing generator and Slack – a communication platform – uses Gen AI to summarise long conversations.
GenAI, at your service.
When you’re running a business, time is money. Leveraging programs like ChatGPT can be an easy way to make the most of your time. Turn GenAI into your junior writer, research assistant and friendly IT or software expert. It never gets annoyed at silly questions, works 24/7 and doesn’t need to be paid (yet). Every little task you can hand over to a GenAI tool is a task you don’t need to do and, for a small business owner, those little tasks add up quickly.
GenAI is, however, still just a robot with all the limitations and potential biases that come with it. So, for the moment, you’ll still need to check its work and think carefully about what information you’re inputting.
Want to know more about saving time and using tech in your small business? Browse our Business Hub for guides, articles and handy how-tos.
