Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Small Business (starting at 17:18) with serial entrepreneur and AI expert Kevin Surace.

Kevin shares his knowledge and experience with Artificial Intelligence and the current and potential future impact of AI on small business. He will also share highlights from his fascinating and incredibly varied background.

Kevin Surace is a Silicon Valley innovator, serial entrepreneur, CEO, and TV personality. Kevin has been featured by various periodicals and TV networks, and has keynoted hundreds of events, from INC5000 to TED to the US Congress.

Kevin is currently the Chairman and CTO of Appvance.ai

He been widely featured and recognized including INC Magazines’ Entrepreneur of the Year, and CNBC top Innovator of the Decade. While he has a technical background with 94 worldwide patents, he is also known as a highly dynamic speaker who is a true entertainer that is funny, excites people, educates & energizes audiences to action.

Kevin has led pioneering work across numerous industries including cellular data smartphones, semiconductors, Artificial Intelligence, construction and building energy management including the window & energy retrofits of the Empire State Building and NY Stock Exchange. He is also an accomplished music director, conductor, Broadway and streaming producer, and percussionist.

Kevin lives in Sunnyvale, California.

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Artificial Intelligence for Small Business:

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

More about Small Business Owners can use AI and ChatGPT to start, run and grow a small business:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and tools like ChatGPT can offer significant advantages. Here are some examples of how they can leverage AI and ChatGPT:

Customer Support:

• Chatbots: Implement AI-driven chatbots on your small business website to answer frequent customer questions 24/7, improving user experience and freeing up your time. Sephora uses a chatbot on its website and Facebook Messenger to offer product recommendations and answer frequently asked questions.
• Ticket Prioritization: AI can help prioritize customer support tickets based on urgency or other factors. You can further refine these prioritization factors over time. KLM uses AI to read through incoming social media messages, prioritize them, and suggest possible answers to human agents.

Sales and Marketing:

• Lead Scoring: AI can analyze potential sales leads and rank them based on their likelihood to convert in a sales for your small business. HubSpot’s CRM uses AI to help small businesses prioritize and segment their leads based on behavior and likelihood to convert.
• Personalized Marketing: AI can analyze customer behavior and preferences to tailor marketing efforts for better engagement. Netflix uses AI algorithms to analyze viewer preferences and history, curating personalized recommendations and watch lists.
• Content Creation: ChatGPT can assist in generating content ideas or even writing draft content for blogs, newsletters, websites, marketing materials, and more. The Washing Post newspaper uses Heliograf, an AI-driven software, to produce short reports and news pieces.

Operational Efficiency:

• Scheduling and Appointments: AI-driven tools can help automate appointment bookings, reminders, and rescheduling. X.ai offers an AI-driven personal assistant that schedules meetings and manages calendars.
• Inventory Management: For retailers, AI can predict stock requirements based on historical data, trends, and other influencing factors. Amazon uses complex AI algorithms to forecast demand, to place inventory closer to its customers.

Financial Management:

• Expense Tracking: AI can categorize and track expenses and highlighting any unusual spending. Expensify uses AI to categorize and report expenses from uploaded receipts, reducing the time it takes for small businesses to process expense reports.
• Forecasting: Predict future sales or financial trends based on existing data. IBM’s Watson Analytics offers predictive insights for sales forecasts based on historical data.

Product Recommendations:

• E-commerce Sites: AI can analyze user behavior to suggest products, increasing the chance of additional sales. Ecommerce sites like Amazon have been applying AI to drive increased customer satisfaction and sales for many years.
• Feedback or Review Analysis: AI can sift through customer reviews or feedback to highlight areas for improvement or even respond to common questions or issues.

Website and UX Optimization:

• User Behavior Analysis: AI tools can analyze how users interact with a website and suggest changes to optimize user experience. Airbnb uses AI to optimize property listings’ pricing based on a myriad of factors, ensuring hosts have competitive pricing.
• A/B Testing: AI can help in efficiently running A/B tests to determine which version of a web page, advertisement, or email campaign performs better.

Small Business Planning and Strategy:

• Market Analysis: ChatGPT and other AI tools can help gather and analyze data on market trends, competitors, and emerging technologies or shifts in the industry. Google Trends utilizes AI to analyze search data, helping small businesses understand market trends and consumer interests.
• Recruitment – Resume Screening: AI can help sort through applicant resumes to shortlist potential candidates based on specified criteria for your small business. LinkedIn’s Recruiter platform uses AI to screen and recommend potential job candidates based on skills and experiences.

Learning and Development:

• Tailored Learning: AI can personalize training resources for employees, helping them upskill more effectively and become more productive to help you grow your small business. Coursera uses AI to personalize course recommendations for learners based on their preferences and past courses.

Network and Security:

• Threat Detection: AI can identify unusual patterns and potential threats in a network, enhancing cybersecurity for your small business. Darktrace uses machine learning to detect, respond to, and mitigate cyber threats in real-time.

Product Development:

• Customer Feedback Integration: Analyze feedback to identify features or improvements customers desire. Slack uses AI to analyze feedback and enhance its features, making the collaboration tool more user-friendly.
• Software Testing: AI, and solutions like those offered by Appvance.ai, can improve and accelerate the testing of software products.

Leveraging AI and ChatGPT can be cost-effective and time-saving for small business owners, allowing them to compete more effectively in their markets, understand their customers better, and automate routine tasks. As AI tools become more accessible and user-friendly, even businesses with limited tech expertise can integrate them into their operations.

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI by Reid Hoffman
• Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh

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