AI: The Race Everyone's Joining. Should You?

Been to an office without talking about AI lately?

Me neither.

It's akin to a race, where everyone is lacing up their shoes and prepping for the marathon.

But the question is, should you join in?

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about this, so here are my raw thoughts.

Is AI stupid?

Every time a new technology appears, critics will be there. The same goes for the calculator, the Internet, the iPhone, and search engines. Disruption (buzzword, I know) tends to divide the world into two groups.

Enthusiasts and Critics.

Let me be honest: AI is pretty smart, but it's not that new. A lot of systems already have some sort of AI integrated, or you can call it "machine learning".

What's mind-boggling, at least for me, is the mass market adoption with the launch of ChatGPT. No one saw that coming. Even Google seems to be a bit behind, who would have thought that? Yes, I know, Bard.

It feels like ChatGPT (perhaps due to media hype) bridged the gap and got everyone onboard from day one.

All new versions of something pretty much suck.

My first blog post was horrible, my first podcast was toe-curling, and my first speech was something of a nightmare - and a lot of anxiety.

Yet, I see many people and articles already judging AI, despite its short lifespan.

Instead, I acknowledge where the technology will be a year from now. I try to be less judgmental, keeping an open mind and watching how it unfolds.

Think of AI as a cup of water above our everyday lives. Right now, we're poking small holes in the bottom of the cup, and it's starting to seep into what we know as our daily routines.

Only time will show us the adaptation rate - everything else is guesswork.

You Don't Need More Tools, You Need Focus

Amidst the cacophony of countless AI tools, one could easily get lost.

However, instead of amassing more tools, it's time to pick up the telescope of focus and hone in on what truly matters.

Right now, thousands of AI tools are released every week. Add to that the countless numbers of plugins added to the ChatGPT plugin-store.

Many of them are built upon the ChatGPT API, so at some point, a huge chunk of these will shut down or become outdated. ChatGPT and their plugins simply develop faster.

Lately, I've been speaking to a lot of people who are afraid to miss out on the AI race, so they try every single system out there.

Add some gasoline to that fire with all the "AI experts" and "AI affiliate heroes" on LinkedIn who try to push you towards a new system every week.

The marketing industry has been like this for ages; a new tool won't necessarily make you better - your ability to use a tool will.

Let me be honest: You don't need more tools, you need to focus on a few tools and apply the trial and error method.

Turn the Problem Around: Could AI Be the Solution?

Whenever you encounter a problem, why not flip it on its head?

Ask yourself, could AI be the silver bullet we're searching for?

Instead of playing around in AI (which is fine, more on that later), my suggestion is to look at current processes, development, and ideas.

Could these be enhanced or replaced by AI? Like A/B split testing.

Look at the problem (thesis) and see if the AI Magic Wand could replace manual processes, make them smarter, or add some features.

Let's dive into the "AI will kill customer support" narrative.

A lot of AI experts are setting an end date for customer support with human interactions. I don't believe in that. I know it's dangerous to predict the future - but let's be honest: Have you so far encountered a chatbot that wasn't truly annoying?

You always end up with the "Let me speak to a human".

If every support system out there is based on AI, how do you set yourself apart? With human interactions.

I'm not saying you can't optimize your support with canned responses made by AI. Even optimizing the backend of a support system with AI would be a significant enhancement. Such as providing AI-based feedback on when to expect high volumes.

I just don't believe that a fully automated ChatGPT support is set to replace all customer support jobs.

I also remember a quote I read in the book "Supertrends", which underlines that we as a species tend to adapt and progress before our doomsday is near.

AI & the Future: A Major Part of Our Backbone

Just as our spine supports our body, AI will likely become highly integrated into the backbone of our infrastructure.

That's where I believe it will make the biggest difference.

Let's use an example from the e-commerce world.

We just saw that Shopify released Sidekick - a personal AI system which can help you understand everything related to your Shopify e-commerce store and the data you have.

I've been missing this function for years in Google Analytics. You have the data, but there's no intelligence behind it, which means the findings depend on your skills and experience.

Imagine having an AI e-commerce partner dialed into all your e-commerce software, oh. That's a dream. Or maybe I just have weird dreams, but hang on.

Let's play a game with some questions for our newly found friend:

• Please find which day & months our revenue tends to spike?
• Crawl our inventory and check for potential problems (out of stock/too much).
• For the next quarter, please make a list of our top-sellers and forecast stock by using last year's data plus the average growth % for this year, in the stock calculation.

Some of this is already possible, with some workarounds, yes, due to the code-interpreter in ChatGPT.

See how valuable that is?

Let's take it a bit further:

• Compare my revenue for this year with the industry growth. Outline potential risks such as weather, natural disasters, and supply & demand problems. Also, take the economic situation into consideration.
• Show a graph of our growth over the last 4 years, and combine it with industry growth and brand searches on our brand [brandname].
• Show me a list of "deadstock", meaning stock that hasn't sold anything in 3 months. Now list potential problems with these stocks compared to when they usually sell and which channels they are selling from.

This is just e-commerce. It's easy to understand and it won't be long before it's a reality.

If I were running a data analytics company supplying e-commerce businesses with data, statistics etc., my philosophy would be as I mentioned before: Could these be solved with AI?

Now apply this to all industries with technology backend systems (basically everything today) - and you can see how my example from the water cup will come in handy.

It's already seeping in.

How I Enjoy It: Playful AI – The Modern LEGO

But Micky, should I just be benched on the sideline in regards to AI?

No need for that. I approach it like a child would approach LEGO.

It's okay (actually it's important, even as an adult) to let out your inner child.

I've also taken a few courses on the matter of which I would recommend two.

• Google - Generative AI learning path (bit technical)
• Udemy ChatGPT Complete Guide (260+ videos)

Want to copy my "stack"? (Disclaimer: It's boring)

1. ChatGPT + Plugins - Learn to prompt the right way.
2. MidJourney5 - For visual creation.
3. Beautiful.ai - For presentations (Upload your brandbook to begin with).

Just for The Fun

I used ChatGPT in combination with MidJourney5 to build a children's book for my nephew.

Below you can see a page from the book - in Danish.

So let's stay curious, adaptable, and keep asking the right questions (prompts, lol).

After all, the world of AI is as thrilling as it is thought-provoking, and we're all just finding our notes in this grand composition.

Until next time, keep exploring AI! I'm sure you got plenty more creative ideas than I do.

Feel free to add your comments, even if you get a little AI assistance on the matter. It's all good.