AI in Business: Benefits, Risks, and the Hidden Productivity Trap
There isn’t a business owner who isn’t using AI in some shape or form, consciously or unconsciously. It is everywhere, on your phone, desk or laptop – apps are helping you write personalised messages for cards and gifts.
It feels like I’m surrounded by a world of non-humans … I say I because perhaps you don’t feel like that. But if you are still reading …
Before I start talking about the ‘gap’, and I promise all will become clear very soon. I want to reiterate that I’m not saying AI is bad. However, I do feel that we are becoming heavily reliant upon it. Dare I say it’s like we’ve lost the ability to think for ourselves.
The Benefits of AI in Business
From helping you work more efficiently by completing research while you check your emails, to business diagnostics. Creating a spreadsheet in half the time you can, and bouncing ideas around.
They can help with your learning by providing you with a step-by-step guide, a how-to. They can even create a bot – an interactive something or other – hopefully you are getting the idea.
And discussing AI at a recent networking meeting, a solopreneur shared how he’d created an AI co-founder — someone to bounce ideas off, develop and grow a business with. In hindsight, I should have asked if he’d named the co-founder he had created!
Need a new policy or process? Absolutely quicker with Chatty Chat or Claude, or any of the others. Developing something new, exploring a new offer or service — again, brilliant.
And marketing content? It can churn it out at an extremely high quality — polished, templated, and so smooth that your readers will consume it with delight.
And these are just the benefits for us mere mortals; imagine the difference it is making for scientists.
The greatest gift that AI can give you is time.
Absolutely and without doubt, AI saves time because it can work faster than you.
Rather than blocking a day to create content, you can set Chat to do that for you; boom, that is a day back. Use it to improve your systems and processes, and your business will become more efficient, potentially creating time (and financial savings).
Time is one of those things everyone craves, whether in their business or in life.
So, AI could take the title and be the greatest gift to you and your business.
What are the risks of AI to your business?
I have very astute clients who have held back a little from using AI, and they are wise to do so. Because AI’s job is to look for stuff, to learn from what it finds and the information it is given. So, what you put in becomes part of its learning. So, if you are using it to work out specific models or scenarios for a client, remove sensitive data first.
Beyond AI learning from you, what you share and everything that is out there. Data security should be on your radar, both in relation to the above example and also because you have no control over it.
A couple of things I wasn’t aware of until recently:
- AI hallucinates — basically makes stuff up
- That information is then used in blogs
- AI scrapes those blogs to answer future questions
- And then uses its own inaccuracies to create “truth”
Scary stuff!
The other thing I learned is that AI is not very good at maths. Well, they — and I — both… but in the case of AI, it’s because it searches for patterns. So if a number fits the pattern, it may use that over the correct number.
The AI Gap Risk
Yes, this is worth a section all of its own. The biggest challenges I see business owners face are time, or rather lack of it, and productivity, or rather the ability or NOT to focus on what matters most. And AI can’t help you here, and can exacerbate the problem!!
If you already struggle to focus, find yourself jumping on this, that and the other, and can’t find time to make yourself a cuppa. AI might add to your challenge by creating more work for you. Because information overload is real, and business owners were already struggling with FOMO, shiny object syndrome, and trying to do it all.
The alternative to this is that you have time but don’t know what to do with it, and don’t have a roadmap to a successful destination to follow, so fill your time with busywork!
I urge you to work out what you need time for before you rush down the route of making everything more efficient with the help of Chatty Chat or other helpful AI platforms.
Why are Chatty Chat and I on a break?
It never ceases to amaze me how, the minute I start to feel a tug towards something, in this case, using AI less, everything I need to support that appears, articles, posts, and conversations. So, Chatty Chat and I are on break. Or rather, I am choosing to be less reliant and have reverted to writing my own content.
Previously, I would write the longest prompts. Work with Chat to produce something that felt human, was me, had my tone and all that jazz. But over the past few months, I have felt a little lost in the content I am putting out there. So, I’m writing again, in full, and while I will seek help from Chat on flow to pick up typos, I am taking back control.
Human versus AI
If you are looking to take back control and want to pull back a little from reliance on AI. I’m here as a fully formed human coach, with three ways I can help.
- Book a Next Steps Call. If you are feeling stuck or overwhelmed right now, a Next Steps Call can help you step back and identify where to focus. Book your call here.
- Supercharge Your Focus Workbook: A resource that will help you step back, refocus your energy, and gain clarity about what truly matters in your business. Download your copy here.
- Join My Mailing List. Each week, I share insights and reflections to help you grow your business. If you want ongoing support and grounded, honest guidance, sprinkled with humour, you can join here.