We passed 1,000 businesses trained in AI last month. ProfileTree has been running these workshops for 2 years now and truthfully, we’ve learned more about people than we’ve about technology.
Same patterns all over the place we go. Same mistakes. Same perceptions. And the identical “wow” moments when something finally clicks.
Here’s what we’ve learnt along the best way.
Everyone Wants the Advanced Toys
“What are the highest 10 AI tools we must be using?”
We get asked this in every session. And I understand why people ask. They want the total picture. The comprehensive list. To give you the option to do all the things from someday of training.
But most individuals asking this query haven’t even found out ChatGPT yet. Not properly.
We’ll ask a gaggle – who’s using the memory feature? Who’s arrange custom instructions? Who’s tried Projects where you upload your documents and it remembers all the things?
Hardly anyone. Maybe one or two hands in a room of fifty.
People are using ChatGPT like a search engine and text generator and that’s it. Getting generic answers. Then deciding they need a unique tool.
There’s a lot in ChatGPT that folks just skip past. Personalisation. Projects. Team features. Different GPTs for various jobs. Most persons are using perhaps 5-10% of what is feasible.
The phrase we hear continually: “I believed I used to be using ChatGPT but I wasn’t even scratching the surface.”
Hence our push is to master one tool fully first. Then worry about what’s next.
The Implementation Problem
This jogs my memory of our digital and website training that we still deliver. People come to our training. They’re engaged. Taking notes. Asking good questions. Leave the room buzzing. “This goes to alter all the things.”
Then we follow up 4 weeks later.
Hardly anything has been implemented. We hear the identical reasons – as every business – “Been too busy.” “Things got in the best way.” “Planning to start out next month.”
Next month never comes. We all know this.
What most individuals don’t understand. AI isn’t one other thing so as to add to your list. It’s speculated to make the list shorter. You don’t make time for it – you utilize it to create time.
The businesses that truly change? They implement something the subsequent day after which proceed. One thing. Doesn’t matter how small.
Everyone else adds it to a to-do list and forgets about it inside per week. We will see these people at one other training course in 6 months.
(*12*)
Stop Planning. Start Doing.
Bigger firms are the worst for this. “We must map out our AI strategy across all departments before we do anything.”
They arrange a working group. Have meetings about having meetings. Create documents. Discuss security. Commission reports.
Meanwhile some freelancer working from her kitchen is getting twice as much done as their entire marketing department.
We worked with a medium sized firm in Belfast. The owner just picked essentially the most annoying part of his workload – writing tender responses – and began using AI for it immediately. No strategy document. No committee. Just ChatGPT and a fantastic Project arrange.
Saving himself 2-3 days a month now. His competitors are probably still within the planning phase. We have seen in lots of of the larger firms HR or IT actually blocking a controlled AI rollout, while they usually are not considering that lots of their staff are probably already using AI without approval. This Shadow AI use is common in lots of larger firms through to government departments. Organisations must run faster to get ahead of the AI train.
Small Businesses Are Winning with AI Implementation
This is essentially the most interesting pattern we see. Freelancers, consultants, micro businesses – are throughout AI. Fully embracing it.
Why? No permission needed. No IT department to persuade. No procurement process. They just get on with it.
For a one-person business, AI is like hiring an assistant you could possibly never afford before. Tasks that took all morning are done in an hour. More capability without more hours of work.
We trained a copywriter in Dublin. Sceptical firstly and thought AI would replace her. By the top she was surprised and annoyed she had not fully reviewed AI sooner. It doubled her output and allowed her to do tasks she was never capable of cover before akin to keyword research and audit a web site’s analytics.
Large organisations will catch up eventually. But at once there’s a window where small and nimble operations are beating big and slow.
Security Questions
Every training session someone asks about data privacy. Its great to see that there are people desirous about data controls.
No it’s best to not dump confidential client info into the free version of ChatGPT without understanding what happens to it.
But the reply isn’t to ban all the things and permit Shadow AI to take over an organisation. The answer is to grasp what you’re using. This is where a fantastic AI Policy comes into its own and supports an organization that’s attempting to roll out AI rigorously.
Create easy to follow policies. Configure the approved AI tools properly. Make conscious decisions with any personal data that might be seen as sensitive.
Getting security incorrect today can have serious consequences and we’ve seen a handful of data leaks from leading AI platforms already.
Still Plenty of Sceptics
Even now after moving from Chat GPT 3.5 to five.1 – we’ve a number of people in each training group who don’t see AI having a giant change or impact on the best way they work.
We’ve stopped attempting to persuade everyone with slides and theory.
Now we attempt to do every session live throughout the AI platforms – i.e. no slides. We have someone gives us an actual problem they’re stuck on. We try to solve it in front of everyone. Real task, real solution, real time.
The “wow” moments don’t come from explaining what AI could do. They come when someone watches their very own two-hour job get done in five minutes. These moments are special in every training session.
Marketing First
About 80% of businesses, we train start with content. Blogs, social posts, emails.
This makes perfect sense. Marketing tasks are repetitive enough to profit but low risk enough to experiment safely. Time savings show up almost immediately. What took a morning takes an hour. Then people get interested by other areas. The rollout tends to flow from here.
The marketing teams are the straightforward converts – the harder work is with finance, operations and sales. But all is feasible – its just finding the best problem or task to resolve with the perfect AI solution.
What We Tell Everyone Now
After a thousand of these conversations our advice has turn out to be. Learn one tool properly before chasing others. ChatGPT has good enough to maintain you busy and transform lots of any job you do.
Start with something that annoys you. Not something impressive sounding. Something you really hate doing.
Implement something inside 48 hours of training.
The gap between businesses using AI and businesses desirous about it’s getting wider every month. We can see it clearly from running all these sessions. Some firms are achieving incredible efficiencies while others haven’t even checked out AI yet.
The tools are there. The learning curve isn’t steep. Results are real.
The key query is whether or not your clients will actually do something about it or simply add it to the list.
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