AI is a topic of discussion everywhere you look. Artificial Intelligence is an undeniable factor in today’s businesses and our everyday life. It’s only going to grow. But what about the impact it has on your small business? Is there a good answer to how small business can compete against AI?
Impact of AI on Small Business
Social Media Presence
AI allows users to produce more, faster. This is especially relevant when it comes to a small business social media. Our series on Improving Web Presence for Small Business gives a thorough overview of how important social media is on modern businesses.
A recent article stated that a business should make a social media post, at minimum, eleven times a day to stay relevant. Whether this is Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), or your site’s Blog, search engines are taking it all into account.
AI would facilitate this. Eleven posts per day might be overwhelming, even impossible, for some small businesses on their own. Hiring others, in-house or outsourced, to write everything is a possibility. It’s also expensive. Utilizing AI to take on the burden of this task makes sense, at least at first glance.
Competition between Large and Small Businesses
Eleven posts per day is easy for AI. It is capable of far more than that. But that only serves to continue raising the bar, doesn’t it?
If a small business creates eleven social media posts per day, using AI or not, then larger businesses will create twelve, twenty, two-hundred, or a thousand if necessary to stay competitive. And they can do it.
AI will churn out whatever they need. Large businesses have the resources to utilize AI at a higher capacity than a small business can manage. Unfortunately, once again, large corporations have the edge over the small business.
Small Business Impact on AI Use
The ironic thing then is that the small businesses are fueling the very inequity against which they’re trying to compete. The more we use AI the more our competition will use it too. And the large businesses will be better at it.
Our fear is not just that AI will overtake us, or even replace us. It is the fear that, if we don’t adopt it, we will become irrelevant. But we’re creating our own enemy, and empowering them.
So how do we compete?
How a Small Business Can Compete Against AI
Let’s first revisit the statement about how AI creates more, faster. That’s true. But you didn’t start your small business to churn out endless product only for the sake of having more of it.
Instead, you have a passion (and maybe a necessity) that propelled you to create your business. Your goal is to build loyal, long-term clients that carry you through decades of your professional life.
In turn, your promise to them is, not quantity, but quality. Never lose sight of the value of Quality over Quantity.
And here comes the glaring difference between the quality of what AI manufactures versus what you alone can deliver to your clients.
Have you ever looked at AI art? It’s striking and vibrant, yes. But there is a certain generic quality to it. AI can’t consider anything beyond the information available to it. It can’t dream, envision, or care. AI can’t truly compete with you because it can never be You. And you are the very heart of your small business.
The Human Factor
Consider even the most basic benefits you have for your clients that AI can’t do.
Creativity
AI isn’t creative. It instead scours the internet, like the machine it is, gathering data that it cobbles together to create a simulation of something made by man. It mimics creativity. It doesn’t possess it. One of humanity’s greatest strength is our ability to think outside the box. We imagine things, seemingly from nothing sometimes, and turn them into reality.
You imagined what your business could be when you started it. I guarantee you don’t imagine it being a passionless machine that grinds out rehashed products and services. You have a mind far better than that of artificial intelligence, and it’s a secret some don’t want you to know.
Passion
I mentioned passion in the last paragraph. Let’s go back to that. Passion and Purpose is what drives us. We have an instinctive need to grow, change, and become more. It is reflected in your business too.
Think of how hard you’ve worked for your clients. Sometimes, no doubt, more than you think you should. But you do. The reason for that isn’t only profit or retaining business (though both, admittedly, are nice). It’s because you care about your business. You want it to thrive. To reflect the very best of you.
The business is only an extension of your character. And make no mistake, you are truly unique. Whatever the qualities might be, there are things about you that only you can give to others. Your business does that.
Quite frankly, AI doesn’t care about your business at all. It’s a passionless employee that, while tireless, will never show empathy for your dream.
Empathy
AI cannot have empathy. I mentioned it above but this needs to be reinforced. AI is code. It does what it’s told to do. But no matter how efficient it is at doing it, it cannot care. Let me repeat that: AI doesn’t care about your small business.
We work, in part, because we must. Let’s be real, we need money. But we need people to help us earn it. Your small business doesn’t do that by dehumanizing your customers to numbers, dollars, and cents. You wouldn’t hire an employee who thought that way about your customers either.
Instead, you earn money by earning your clients. Loyalty. Respect. Fairness. Communication. Empathy. These are the cornerstones of all small business, and all good relationships. Your company reflects these values and they should never be diminished.
When one of your clients (who is also a real person, I might add) needs you, they aren’t looking for how many tweets you dropped that day, or the closest chat bot. They need to be heard, and for a business to care. They need You.
Summary
This isn’t to say that AI is not useful. It isn’t going away and, likely, everyone will be using it in some way. This article is instead a reminder of what AI is and what it isn’t. Most importantly, it’s a reminder of how invaluable you are.
Use AI if you wish. It has many benefits for the effieciency of your small business. But, as with all things, keep balance and perspective. As a small business owner, but also as a person, you are unique. Take care of your customers, your business, and especially yourself. AI can never reduce, replace, or copy you.
Final Thought
Small Businesses Working Together
I could have easily used AI to auto-generate this blog article. It would have been faster. I didn’t, and that choice was an easy one to make. It mattered enough for me to say it, from my own heart and mind, because you matter to me for reading it.
And that’s where the real power of Small Businesses come in. Collectively, we can dream, create, and deliver something AI can never accomplish. Our impact happens when we work together to build a world for our clients where they feel valued and well provided for.
If you want your small business to be a part of this, get in touch. Crimson Web Design is as real as it gets.