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By Dave Warner, Systems Engineer at Cenetric

If you’re a person who uses the internet (and if you’re reading this, I guess you are) you’ve heard of AI. 

You might have heard it’s going to replace everyone’s job, or it’s gone crazy and is recommending people put glue on their pizza. The hype is everywhere, and it can be hard to figure out how exactly AI could help or hurt your business. 

What AI is and how it can play a role in your business

We could go on and on about what AI is (and isn’t), but we’d be here for years. Simply put:

AI is a collection of technology that learns and performs new tasks based on past experience and/or human input, simulating or resembling a human’s ability to do the same. 

For instance, AI is how the photo album on your phone recognizes the same person in multiple photos and allows you to search for and view all the photos of that person at once.

AI has benefits — and limitations. In seconds, it can perform a task that would normally take hours or be frustrating for a human. But it doesn’t always have the common sense and logic a human would use (like knowing not to put glue on a pizza). 

That’s why it’s a good idea to think carefully about how you allow the technology to be used in your business. It’s a powerful tool when used appropriately, but it can be a disaster when it’s not. 

Do: Analyze complex data

Whether it’s parsing through largely unintelligible log files, summarizing reports, or looking for patterns in a monster Excel spreadsheet, systems like CoPilot or ChatGPT can do an excellent job of analyzing and clarifying complex things.

If you get an unexpected result, it’s a good idea to use the information AI has provided to dig into the data and make sure you can confirm the result for yourself. 

(Huge caveat: Make sure the data you’re asking ChatGPT to analyze is not proprietary or confidential. More on that below.)

Do: Brainstorm

This is my personal favorite use. If I have some basic idea floating around that I want to develop further, I’ll ask ChatGPT to help me brainstorm ideas for it. I’ll provide the basic concept, then ask it to start asking probing questions, or even things like, “What am I not considering here?” And before long, I’ll have a fully fleshed-out idea.

Because I’m interacting with it and using my human thought processes in the prompts, I can be assured that the results I’m getting are well-founded. If something seems off, I can ask ChatGPT to provide the source or reason for its answer and make sure I’m on the right track.

Do: Create clearer emails

I’m a tech guy, not a writer, so sometimes I need a little help making sure what I’ve written is just right. I’ve never been great at formatting email notifications for things like Microsoft making a change in pricing. But you know what is? ChatGPT. 

By using ChatGPT, I can get a head start on writing clear, concise emails so the reader knows exactly what to do. Of course, I always double-check it before hitting send so I can make sure everything is accurate.

Do: Take notes

Notetaking is one of the most common AI uses I see in our virtual meetings and external calls. AI-powered notetakers for online meetings are incredibly helpful for keeping track of questions, action items, and commitments made during the meeting. Some will even track engagement and sentiment, so you know if you’re losing your audience.

If you do use an AI notetaker, make sure you understand the privacy issues around it. Different states and industries might have laws and regulations that don’t permit it.

Don’t: Give up your data

One of the biggest dangers of some AI tools is letting them access confidential or proprietary data. Tools like ChatGPT are based on Large Language Models (LLM), a type of AI that recognizes, learns from, and generates text.

These LLMs work based on data they’ve been trained on. This is always changing as new models are released, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say they’re based on available internet content and corrected by both trained humans and end users —i.e. you and your employees. 

Without the right privacy settings turned on, whatever you put into an AI tool can become part of that tool. That means your internal information could be included in the information other users get when they use the tool. And given the potential for and history of breaches with these tools, even privacy settings might not be enough. In fact, some companies are banning their use entirely.

This doesn’t go for all AI-based solutions, however. Many purpose-built AI tools are safer to use because they use the data you give them to provide you a specific service and don’t combine it with the data of others or distribute it to others. For example, Microsoft Co-Pilot uses LLMs to process only the data a user has authorized access to. 

Here’s the bottom line: To protect your company, create a clear policy that outlines how AI tools can and cannot be used in your organization and make sure you have the proper cybersecurity protections in place if improper use leads to a cyber incident.

Photo: iStock

Don’t: Use it to replace functions that require a human touch

There are a lot of aspects of your business that can be improved by AI and automation. Others are harder to apply AI to — at least with good results. 

One of these areas is customer service. While the public is coming to appreciate the speed and ease of AI chatbots for some issues, for others they want a real live person to interact with.  They often find chatbots are just fine for routine tasks, like canceling a subscription, but when it comes to complex issues, they prefer a human agent.

And if they have a bad experience, they’re not eager to try again: 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, according to Salesforce.

A better solution is to use AI tools to enhance the output of the humans on your team, but not replace them with it. There are solutions available that assist your customer service team in understanding a customers’ sentiment to deliver more empathetic service or analyzing an interaction and suggesting the right internal information to answer the customer’s question faster. 

Let technology experts be your guide to choosing the right AI tools

The world of AI solutions for your business can be overwhelming, but the right ones can bring big advantages to your company. When you understand the issues around AI, you can make more informed choices. (And avoid glue-y pizza.)

If you need to implement new software or technology in your business — AI-based or otherwise — Cenetric has the experience and availability to support your team. Tell us about your project and we’ll be in touch to get started right away.