Are you thinking of integrating AI into your business? Wondering if you should cut headcount or increase expected output of your staff? In this article, we'll explore how to adopt AI inside your business.

Why Should Businesses Consider Taking Advantage of AI?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the capabilities of businesses across industries, especially marketing. For many small business leaders, AI presents both enormous opportunities and potential threats.

Initially, Ron Callis, founder and CEO of One Firefly, an agency that specializes in helping small businesses with AI adoption and marketing, was afraid AI technology would make his business irrelevant.

In 2007, Ron launched an engineering firm serving small custom integrator businesses. By 2015, he recognized marketing was the most profitable, scalable part of his business.

Fast forward to late 2022, when the release of ChatGPT sent shockwaves through industries dependent on text generation.

Recognizing the severity of AI's impact, Ron worked to educate his leadership team. At One Firefly's mid-2023 all-staff event, he presented his vision for AI adoption.

For business leaders who are unsure about adopting AI inside their business, it's important to understand that it can enable you to deliver far superior products for the same or lower cost.

However, resistance can be futile—ignoring AI risks and ceding market share to early adopters. Companies that build expertise applying AI will achieve competitive advantages.

AI adoption is also being driven by customer expectations. One Firefly has lost deals to competitors using AI for content creation and social media.

#1: Embrace an AI Mindset

Successfully embracing AI requires businesses to evolve their thinking. Some leaders and staff may be hesitant about disruptive change.

However, he learned that this way of approaching the conversation around AI was actually disruptive to his team because his company was already a pretty well-oiled machine.

For example, Ron developed buyer personas using ChatGPT, which created a list of blog topics he could use to better target content to his ideal customers.

Taking inspiration from author Patrick Lencioni and his team management practices, Ron now focuses on creating psychological safety through trust-building with his team.

Additionally, Ron advocates always tying AI to your clear business objectives. Ask your team how AI could enhance your business's specific products or processes.

One Firefly's expertise, both around marketing the industry it serves, coupled with the effective use of AI and its tools, allows the business to deliver a higher quality product.

#2: Consider Your Hiring Practices

A major concern around AI is whether businesses should reduce their headcount needs.

One Firefly prioritizes a growth mindset. Any successful business has to know its numbers to make informed decisions about staffing or other related costs.

As of late 2023, One Firefly has not laid anyone off due to AI integration. Even though AI allows his business to do more with fewer people, Ron believes AI elevates his company's capabilities rather than replaces roles.

It boils down to efficiency. For example, One Firefly is retraining current staff to utilize AI and help efficiently deliver more diversified products and services to its customers.

Philosophically, the employer-employee relationship is bidirectional. Employees should proactively boost productivity through AI to remain a valued part of their company.

#3: Experiment With Guidelines and Safeguard Your Intellectual Property

Experimenting with AI requires structure, so you know how to assess it. It's important to develop a rubric of guidelines for experimenting with AI inside your company.

For example, for every existing product One Firefly has, four stakeholders oversee it. For any changes to be made to that product, it has to pass through the sales team, the CFO, the product producers, and the customer.

And so, it's important to understand the threats and opportunities of change within your business.

One Firefly created an AI Council of critical stakeholders from different departments within the company that develops policies and procedures to guide teams in all things AI.

Additionally, One Firefly worked with legal counsel to develop formal policies around AI use.

Many AI systems ingest user data to enhance responses. When you put your private, confidential information into these AI systems, you are essentially feeding the large language model.

Externally, One Firefly is transparent with clients about if/how AI is applied. Internally, rules guide teams on appropriate data practices.

The company's policies aim to increase mindfulness around securing intellectual property (IP) while allowing AI use.