My 3 psychological approaches for using AI in your business

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is naturally now the 'go-to' technology to make operational functions more efficient, with uses across accounting, IT and digital marketing. It's taking the business world by storm, barging in desperately with an urgent bout of nature calling, and it's hard to argue with its output. But how should we approach its use in everyday tasks?

Last updated 19/11/24

Use like an employee

For businesses short on staff, you could see AI prompts and procedures as simply 'delegating' work to a capable team member. Plus, like with most team practices, it will require your approval before implementing or publicising anyway. Giving an AI tool a prompt could be seen as the same time, effort and clear directive you would put in an email brief to a colleague.

Treat like an extension of your own brain

We're busy. Sometimes, bored. And we only have so much bandwidth for fresh ideas, whilst we do know a good idea when we see it. Give tools (such as Chat GPT) prompts for information, ideas and wider research that we would spend hours trying to plan out. That's half a day saved at least! Important: don't give AI tools any sensitive information about your company. There's also a case to not give it your original ideas.

Create content to be edited by a subject leader

For quality assurance, it is worth you referring the drafts by a subject leader or product manager within your business and adopt the company tone of voice. This could be for blogs, newsletter or emails to an existing customer. For example, i've worked for a company that runs its software best practice content past the very member of staff that designed the software. And I think that's the way to do it. If you deliver professional services, such as accounting or IT, get your accountant or engineer to fact check your copy. If possible, ask them to personalise it or provide some time specific news or opinion related to the topic.

Hope useful. AI has arrived and is here to stay. Using this doting, responsive but slightly unnerving artificial lifeform that does the hard work for us is set to be the leading example of a 'lifehack' that we spend our days chipping away at.

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Bonus section: Marketing Specific AI Tools

The text-based generative AI solutions such as Chat GPT, Gemini, and Claude can assist every department in a typical british organisation, assisting with customer service, competitor analysis and I can see it being applied for the research & development of any product or service. There are a also number of design, creative or digital marketing specific AI packages:

• Visual content - Stability AI, Lumen5, Dall-E and more

• Creative design - ImageSuggest, Shutterstock AI, Freepik and more

• Audio - descript (editing), ElevenLabs (voice), Udio (music) and more

AI can't help you to shop around, complete free trials or decide which solution to buy and train staff to use. You'll have to book it in. There may be integrations or APIs between packages to help make that decision. It may be a case of trialling one of each and seeing how they slot into your day-to-day work without slowing you down. In the long-term, AI should speed you up.