Chasing the Trend: Should You Integrate Generative AI in Your Business Operations?

The goal of all businesses is to make profits. That means prioritising customer satisfaction. In other words, your goods or services must be first-rate and impeccably delivered to your customers. One of the several ways to do this is through technology. 

A smart business owner knows that using new technology in their operations will yield positive results. One such new technology is generative AI, an AI system that can produce new content by itself. All it needs is a prompt and it gets to work. Generative AI is a recent development, becoming a global phenomenon with the recent emergence of tech like ChatGPT, which generates complex, coherent, and human-like writing in response to prompts. 

However, as a business owner hoping to grow your business with new tech, you must first take a moment to consider if generative AI is the best option. Though there are fantastic potential benefits (generative AI, for example, can make your business more efficient and free up your staff to focus on higher-level tasks), there are also risks around issues like bias and inaccuracy.

Below, we’ll look at key factors you should weigh as a business owner when deciding if and how to integrate generative AI into customer service, content creation, product development, and beyond.

Only Play If You Feel Like It: The Important Poker Tip

As in poker, making calculated moves based on careful consideration is important in business. So when it comes to making big decisions like implementing an emerging and potentially transformative technology like generative AI in your operations, you can learn from a simple core tenet of important poker tips and strategies: only play if you feel like it. This is the first and likely most important of all the tips you might hear. That’s because playing when you don’t feel like it might lead to making rash decisions that can jeopardize your game.

Bringing it down to the business world, the lesson is that businesses should “only play if they feel like it” when considering jumping into generative AI. That means you should only pursue it if, after careful analysis to ascertain that it aligns with your goals, you want to give it a try. 

If not, you can avoid committing your limited resources, which could set you back if generative AI proves to be a short-lived fad or introduces unmanageable issues. The savvy business plays the long game, not chasing every trend. Stick to what you do best until you determine generative AI can truly boost that.

Are Your Competitors Using It?

In business, competition keeps you on your toes. Every business needs to closely study its competitors’ moves to see what can be learned. So, observe your competitors; if they are using generative AI to promote their business, it might not be a bad idea to follow suit. After all, it’s best to stay in line with competition. Falling behind could pose an existential threat to your business.

For example, if your main competitors have begun using generative AI for key tasks like customer service, content creation, and data analysis, they can undercut your pricing while handling increased order volume. It might enable them to produce more content faster to help lift web traffic and engagement and derive insights that you don’t have to inform strategy and innovation. If this continues for an extended time, it will eat into your sales, profits, market share, and more while elevating your position in the industry.

Are You Ready For It?

Any business owner worth their salt knows that they can’t just hop on the latest fad in the business world without first considering if it’s the best step. The same goes with generative AI. Take your time to consider if your business is ready for it. Do you have what it takes in terms of technological capabilities? More than that, do you have competent staff that can effectively manage it? 

If the answer to these questions is no, maybe integrating generative AI into your business operations is not the best idea right now. You need to be ready lest you risk major losses. 

Assess your overall readiness; if there are better investments to make first, go for those instead. 

What are the Potential Risks?

Finally, you must consider the risks before integrating generative AI into your business operations. While its capabilities spark visions of transformed operations and industries, generative AI poses risks that require mitigation plans before adoption.

One danger is inaccuracy. Generative AI like ChatGPT sometimes generates false, biased, or nonsensical outputs while generally appearing coherent and authoritative. Content, analytical conclusions, or other AI-created work used without proper human scrutiny, fact-checking, and editing could damage operations and reputation. Rigorous oversight processes must govern implementation.

Like any business decision, determining if you should adopt generative AI for your operations requires measured analysis of competitive pressure, alignment with objectives, and risk management planning. Generative AI can drive transformational gains, but only if its implementation supports your goals. Otherwise, you are better off focusing your resources on proven activities than chasing the AI trend out of fear of missing out.