Beginners guide: How to use AI in your small business (2024).
Firstly, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is simply the term used for technology that does things that traditionally requires human intelligence or creativity.
Predictive text on those old Nokia phones we had is a basic form of AI. When Google prompts you with some suggestions on the words to use next in your email; that’s AI. It has been around for years.
So why is AI, all of a sudden, a huge topic of conversation?
(First published in Feb 2023)
In Nov 2022, Open AI, a research company that aims to promote and develop “friendly” artificial intelligence, launched Chat GPT, a generative AI chatbot that provides conversational responses to your questions and queries. It can also take instruction and generate written articles based on the topics and parameters you give it. Within its first month of launch in December 2022, ChatGPT had over one million users. By January 2023, a month later, it had reached over 100 million active users, making it the world’s fastest growing consumer application to date. And it’s free to use! That’s why everyone’s talking about it.
But Chat GPT isn’t the only, nor the first, AI tool out there. Here are a three others that are worth checking out.
Canva - Magic Write.
Built into Canva (every business owners’ marketing BFF), Magic Write is another AI text generator that will help you quickly create the first draft of a document. Like ChatGPT, you prompt it with a topic or outline what you want, and it will generate text, blog topics, lists, captions, content ideas and more in seconds.
Jasper.ai
Similar to Chat GPT, Jasper is an AI tool that helps you create content quickly, but it’s a paid service that has a slightly different focus. ChatGPT is still in development mode, and is currently geared for research and experimentation. While Jasper is specifically designed for business use and is particularly strong on marketing content, sales pitches and social media captions. It starts at $49 (USD) per month for 50,000 words.
Midjourney
Midjourney uses AI to create images from text descriptions that you prompt it. Think of it as the artist, and you the creative director. Its purpose is to help you create original images without the need for your own photography, props or artwork. The images it generates can be hit or miss, depending on the prompts you give it, but when you get it right, Midjourney can be seriously impressive. It tends to generate artistic images with interesting use of light and shadow, sharp details and an aesthetic that’s not dissimilar to a dramatic movie poster, but they’re unique and designed for you. In the words of Midjourney’s founder, “we just want it to be easy to use – and we want the pictures to look good.”
And our favourite, and most used AI tool: Euryka.ai
We use Euryka.ai everyday in The Forest. It’s an Irish-born AI tool that rivals the best in the world.
Euryka is a game-changer for small business owners looking to dip their toes into the world of artificial intelligence. It's relatively straightforward and user-friendly, so you don't need to be a tech whiz to get started.
Think of Euryka as your digital assistant, ready to help you brainstorm with you, unlock your creativity or take on the mundane tasks that eat up your time. It does everything the AI tools mentioned above do. Plus, you can choose from a variety of expert personas to work with depending on the task at hand; whether that’s a copywriter, social media manager, business strategist, data analyst or other key role you might want to work with.
It helps you understand your data better, so you can make decisions that are spot on. Plus, it can boost your customer interactions and fine-tune your marketing efforts, giving you more time to focus on growing your business.
If you’re looking to choose one AI tool to start working with, start with Euryka. AI becomes less of a mystery and more of a practical tool that can help your business thrive.
This blog post was adapted from content originally shared on Instagram. Follow @TheForest.ie
