ICA Fund recently hosted a workshop series for our community of business owners with one of our trusted advisors and AI Strategist, Joey Muller, on how to get started with Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is still new and emerging, and it was super helpful to learn from a seasoned guide how to use AI beyond just dropping a question in a chatbot. In these workshops, Joey facilitated an insightful conversation around a range of topics including commonly used AI tools, setting up AI regulations for your business, and building more effective chatbot prompts for better AI outputs that are actually helpful. Our biggest takeaway though, was this:

“AI should support, not replace, human decision-making in critical areas of your business.”

— ICA Advisor, Joey Muller

With increased accessibility and affordability of AI tools, more and more companies are exploring how to adopt them into their operations. And you can too. If you’re leveraging AI strategically, it can be a great tool to increase your capacity to focus on the big-picture and make more informed decisions to meet your goals. However, it’s important to find a balance — AI shouldn’t be a replacement for your critical thought and empathy.  Here are some things to consider to ensure that your AI use is kept in check to both maintain this balance and avoid errors that AI is known to make:

• Figure out what you are using AI for: We don’t drive without keeping our eyes on the road. The same goes for AI use. It’s great to experiment and poke around to get a hang on the tool, but eventually you will want to clearly define your businesses use cases for AI and how they will support operations or workflows.
• Protect your information: Some AI tools train on the information that you input, so take caution not to share any sensitive or private data, and make sure you’re using tools with strong privacy policies.
• Check AI outputs: AI is powerful, but nothing can replace our human ability to critically think and contextualize information. Be sure to review AI outputs for quality, accuracy, and bias.‍
• Avoid using AI when relationship building is key: If a task is essential to furthering or building a relationship with someone else, avoid using AI as much as possible. Authenticity and real connection is key when building trust with customers, partners, and employees, and that can get lost if you’re consistently using AI for everything.

This is not an exhaustive list, but here are a few scenarios comparing when you should and should not use AI:

In general, knowing how and when to use AI is a learned skill. It really requires trial and error, and building up your intuition for good applications in your business. And it doesn't need to be daunting: identify 1-2 key areas where you are really challenged for time and capacity, and start there. Just remember, that authenticity and connection are key when creating good experiences for your customers, which is ultimately what will drive your growth. AI can support that, but not replace it.

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Interested in workshops like this? 

ICA’s AI for Small Business Growth workshop series was run exclusively for ICA Alumni, our community of Accelerator graduates. Check out the Accelerator at ICA to learn more about our business advising program and to see when the next application cycle opens up.

In the meantime, read more about an ICA Alum and Portfolio company who is using AI as an integral part of their business: Phlex65 →