How To Get Started With AI: Productivity

Generative AI is a rapidly evolving technology that promises to transform many industries and sectors. However, we are hearing from small businesses that the idea of adopting generative AI is very daunting.

As a business owner, manager, or team leader you may be asking yourself some or all of the following questions:

• Where do we start with AI?
• How do we avoid wasting time with scatter-shot AI adoption?
• How can I prevent my staff from using unsanctioned AI tools, putting our data privacy at risk?
• What competitive edge can we gain if we leverage AI?

Our answer is to start small and take advantage of the existing tools and platforms that can help users boost their productivity and creativity.

Deploy For Productivity First

Small and mid-sized organizations can use generative AI copilots to assist them with tasks such as writing, coding, designing, marketing and more. AI Copilots are not meant to replace human workers, but rather to augment their skills and capabilities in existing information-based tasks.

Empowered users can generate content, summarize information, and blast through writing and creative blockers. Consider:

• Creating drafts for presentations, emails, posts, or emails using Bing Chat Enterprise / Copilot in your browser
• Scrubbing your writing style, tone, and grammar using Grammarly Business
• Summarizing and recapping meetings without scribbling your own notes using Teams Premium Intelligent Meeting Recap
• Retouching images quickly, using generative image fill, and saving valuable design time with Adobe Photoshop
• Building your own automated workflows, simply by telling Power Automate Copilot what you want to accomplish
• Generate content within Microsoft Office mainstays like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams with Microsoft 365 Copilot (Coming Soon)

These small 3-5 minute productivity wins can help teams save time and effort, while also improving the quality and diversity of their outputs. Cumulatively, these small wins turn into highly tangible financial benefits, well worth the tactical changes to the way we work individually and together.

More importantly, by holding the deployment of AI for productivity as the first goal, businesses can benefit from a more controlled attitude toward AI. The time needed for the majority of employees to become comfortable with productivity-focused AI tools, affords a business time to review their data estate with the eventuality of more complex, custom, and bespoke AI solutions.

An Important AI Mindset

Although AI has been around for many years, this recent, prevailing focus on generative AI tools has a lot of end-users (employees in small and medium-sized organizations) lost in its wake.

End-users need time to build confidence and experience in working with generative AI solutions. Deploying productivity tools first can prepare them for more advanced applications in the future. The "quick wins" from Generative AI reveal that this technology is not a threat, but an opportunity for small businesses to grow and innovate.

Take The First Step, Now

The most important thing that small businesses can do concerning generative AI today, is to make the small, first-step of deploying AI for productivity and leveraging copilots.

If you and your team are unsure of where you can start - consider an AI Discovery Consultation with Clear Concepts today!

Did you know Clear Concepts has a topical and informative AI podcast? Listen to the latest episode of "AI For SMB" now.