Harnessing the Power of AI for Small Businesses in New Zealand

So, what exactly is AI?

Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that pertains to systems capable of executing tasks that traditionally require human intelligence, reasoning, or recognition. These systems can take numerous forms, including robotics, chatbots, software, and algorithms. Despite the recent surge in interest, AI is a field with decades of research and theory behind it. Countless science fiction books and films have also contributed to AI’s narrative.

However, AI’s potential extends far beyond human capabilities – the ability of technology to process vast amounts of information rapidly has already been demonstrated through tools like ChatGPT and the integration of AI into code, image, sound, video, and databases.

Common Types of AI

Artificial intelligence is a broad term encompassing many sub-fields. This includes machine learning, which involves training systems to make decisions or predictions based on provided data. With machine learning, a system can become progressively more effective as it ‘learns’ patterns and relationships in the data.

AI also finds application in robotics, where machines operate autonomously using sensors and detection to interact with their environment and complete tasks.

Another critical aspect is ‘natural language processing’, whereby AI is taught to understand and communicate like a human. There have been significant advancements in this area, with ChatGPT being a prime example. The advantage of AI communicating with and understanding humans better is that the power of AI is made more accessible to more people – not just those with programming skills.

Potential Use Cases of AI for Kiwi Businesses

Should businesses be thinking about AI? We believe that it’s absolutely necessary to keep an eye on the development of AI in your industry, even if there’s no immediate impact of technology that’s a fit for you right now. It’s worth remembering that the real power of artificial intelligence is still to be realised. Here are some possible use cases of AI in business:

• Data Analysis: Scanning a spreadsheet of data and finding patterns and trends, such as specific products that are delivering the best performance for the company, or forecasting future sales based on seasonality and historical data.
• Supply Chain Optimisation: Optimise a supply chain based on detailed SKU/product analysis, including when to reorder, when to run specials, estimate shipping times and areas the business can save.
• Chatbots: You may have interacted with chatbots for a while, but the power of these has recently become far more aligned with a human being than the older variants that had a fairly limited set of possible responses. Chatbots can help cater to customer questions without necessarily needing a human – although a good Chatbot will be able to defer complicated issues to a real person.

• Communication Enhancement: With the power of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, AI can be used to take your own questions or raw information and convert it into something more effective – such as editing an email message. Be careful to not share any sensitive information with these tools, though – there’s still much to learn about how information is used and stored.

• Reducing Admin: Whether you’re working in finance, on the building site or cutting hair, we can all probably agree that life has more admin that we’d probably like. Artificial intelligence’s ability to process information and perform tasks almost immediately make it a natural companion for cutting down the admin time.

AI exists within thousands of tools and software’s available and in the near future. These tools can help admin tasks like:

• Scheduling meetings
• Workflow management
• Time and task management
• Automatically suggest responses to email
• Manage and sort documents
• Scan and log details of invoices and reconcile these against bank transactions

These tools aren’t replacements for people of course – but they can help you and your people get the job done smarter (not harder).

Clean and Structure Business Data

Spreadsheets and repositories of business data have been analysed by machine learning and AI tools for some time now. As AI becomes more accessible to more people, we expect businesses to use this technology to better understand and maintain their data.

Imagine you have a 3,000 product business but need a way to sort them into categories that make sense to users browsing through a website. The power of AI can allow this data to be scanned and categorised in as many different ways as the product information allows. To do this without automation could take weeks to complete. The output might not be perfect, but AI can make a giant admin project simply a quality control task.

Similarly, there might be a dataset with incomplete or muddled data. With the right prompt and available data, an AI process could quickly clean up and identify gaps to be addressed within mere moments.

Streamline and Edit Comms

Communication is one of those areas where we’d suggest businesses be careful – relying on computers too heavily to connect with your customers and your business can lose that personal touch. With that said, we already have examples of AI in our written communications with auto-completion suggestions when we draft an email in certain platforms.

And while there’s no replacement for genuine, human interactions with your customers, AI can help you refine a written message that you may be struggling to compose properly. A lot of the quality you’ll get back is down to the ‘prompt’ you provide the tool you’re using. These tools are far from perfect, but we expect they will get better over time.

Challenges with AI

Artificial intelligence is getting plenty of PR at the moment, and a lot of it isn’t positive. There’s good reason for this – genuine concerns over the pace at which AI models and tools are being developed and the amount of information being fed into them has raised the alarm bells for many experts in the industry.

Here are some of the possible barriers and challenges with AI:

• Cost of Implementing: While there are open source solutions, many of the industry-specific solutions come with a cost and require experts to embed it into your business.
• Support for Ongoing Maintenance: With over half a million small businesses in New Zealand and a well-documented shortage of IT talent, getting access to an AI expert might be difficult for guidance with this technology.
• Security of Information: There have been some pretty high profile data breaches and cyber attacks in this part of the world recently, and third party AI tools that gather and store data could potentially be a future target of cyber crime. There’s also real ambiguity around how inputs are used by AI tools.
• Ethics: How quickly will society lean on AI and risk putting people out of jobs? And how confident are we that AI’s biases and inaccuracies won’t result in poor decision making? Broadly speaking there are regulations and principles that still need to be worked through before this technology can truly integrate into all parts of our lives safely.

What does AI mean for my industry?

Almost every day there are new interesting insights about AI advancements. If you’re keen to learn more about how it might impact your industry, we’d suggest using online resources like search engines, technology news and even social media with an appropriately critical eye and the right search terms.

The ideal incorporation of AI to the workforce is as a companion that helps us do our jobs better to free us up to use our skills in new ways. Even if you don’t actively look to find AI tools to embed into your business, many of the standard tools and systems you use will increasingly become more AI-powered. It’s an exciting – albeit sometimes a bit scary time for technology in business.

Get Help Running Your Business

At AI Innovisory, we take pride in providing our clients with access to a team of experts who specialise in providing vital strategic business advice, accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll services. Our team is dedicated to providing you with the support and guidance you need to make informed decisions that will help your business succeed. By building a better business, you’ll build a better life.

The integration of AI into small businesses in New Zealand is not just a trend, but a necessity in the rapidly evolving business landscape. While there are challenges to overcome, the potential benefits of AI far outweigh the hurdles. As a small business owner, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest AI developments and consider how they can be applied to your business operations to enhance efficiency, improve customer service, and drive growth.