{"id":4496,"date":"2024-04-01T20:15:09","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T02:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=4496"},"modified":"2025-05-12T09:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:11:06","slug":"every-business-must-assess-ai-needs-then-the-fun-part-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/every-business-must-assess-ai-needs-then-the-fun-part-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Every business must assess AI needs, then the fun part begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennessean.com\/story\/money\/tech\/2024\/03\/31\/every-business-must-assess-ai-needs-then-the-fun-part-begins\/73118319007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">In my last column I brought up the question that many companies have been asking themselves the past few months:<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cAre we ready for AI?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">For the most part, the bigger players asked this question a few years ago. \u00a0Large enterprises with big budgets have been the vast majority of the early adopters.\u00a0 Using AI for everything from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/custom-database-development-services\/\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"2505\">customer service<\/a>, to sales, to recruiting\u2014the big kids have been off to the AI races.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But for the rest of us, the small and medium-sized companies of the world, the AI revolution is just starting. \u00a0Many of us are not only asking if we\u2019re ready for AI but are also wondering specifically about how to get started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">How much will it cost?\u00a0 Will my competitors pass us up?\u00a0 How do we get started?<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Every company is different, but the process to becoming an AI-enabled business is similar for all of us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">As I mentioned in\u00a0<a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tennessean.com\/story\/money\/tech\/2024\/03\/13\/honest-assessment-always-needed-before-making-next-plan\/72958303007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|${u}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">my last column<\/a>, the first step is to do an \u201cAI Assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The goal is to proactively identify your company\u2019s challenges and opportunities and then figure out if AI can address them. \u00a0There are common themes on where AI can help, but the list itself is unique to every company. \u00a0Factors around industry, budget, long-term goals, and company culture must all be taken into consideration.<\/p>\n<p>Once you have your list of challenges and opportunities that AI-based products can potentially solve, the fun part begins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It\u2019s time to deep dive into all the AI tools available and decide which one\u2019s deliver the most \u201cbang for the buck\u201d for your company\u2019s needs.\u00a0 The end result will be your \u201cAI Tech Stack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Here are some examples of just a few of the tools that make up our company\u2019s AI Tech Stack:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul\">\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\"><strong>Sales:<\/strong>\u00a0We decided to use HubSpot ChatSpot (an AI-based chatbot for our website) and Apollo.ai to automate part of our email marketing.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\"><strong>Accounting:<\/strong>\u00a0We are taking hard look at Booke.ai, an AI-based accounting tool that automates and streamlines common finance tasks like accounts payable and bank reconciliation. \u00a0We plan to test this more to decide if it\u2019s the right fit for our needs.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\"><strong>Marketing:<\/strong>\u00a0We have already been using various <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/social-media-marketing-services\/\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"733\">AI<\/a> tools to help us manage our social media accounts.\u00a0 But we decided to try MarketMuse, which is an AI tool that helps us analyze and perfect the specific content we generate.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\"><strong>Productivity:<\/strong>\u00a0We have been using ChatGPT to save time on common tasks like building PowerPoint presentations or generating agendas for meetings.\u00a0 This has worked well, but we plan to add Microsoft Copilot as it improves, which could save us time using Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Once you have your AI Tech Stack in place, the final piece of the puzzle is what we call our \u201cAI Roadmap.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The AI Roadmap is simply a plan of attack to implement the AI tech stack.\u00a0 It covers prioritizing, timing, and the project planning needed to deploy each tool into your organization\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">So, there you have it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The path to AI is to assess your needs, determine the AI tools that will meet those needs, and then put together a plan of how to deploy them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Are we ready for AI? \u00a0It\u2019s an important question that every business leader should be asking themselves.\u00a0 If the answer is no, it\u2019s time to dive in.<\/p>\n<p><em>JJ Rosen is the founder of <\/em><a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|${u}\"><em>Atiba<\/em><\/a><em>,<\/em><em>\u00a0a <\/em><a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|${u}\"><em>custom software development firm<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0and <\/em><a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|${u}\"><em>Nashville IT support company.<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0Visit <\/em><a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/atiba.com\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|${u}\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Atiba.com<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0for more info.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. In my last column I brought up the question that many companies have been asking themselves the past few months: \u201cAre we ready for AI?\u201d For the most part, the bigger players asked this question a few years ago. \u00a0Large enterprises with big budgets have been the vast majority [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-tennessean"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}