AI has transformed business forever

Artificial intelligence (AI) was a topic of hot debate at the Chamber’s Digital Marketing Conference and Expo, held at Derby County Football Club last month as part of the Derbyshire Festival of Business. Rebecca Erskine reflects on some of the key points discussed.

AI is represented in many forms, as keynote speaker Katie King explained in her highly-engaging keynote speech.

Interactive AI like chatbots, functional AI such as robots, analytic AI to measure sentiment and risk, text Al for converting speech to text, and visual AI including augmented reality, are all playing their part in helping businesses better engage with and understand their audiences.

A well-known example is ChatGPT, a conversational AI tool that generates results based on text prompts. Katie’s examples of such tools came with a note of caution – AI results are hugely driven by the quality of questions asked by the user.

Appropriate Use Of Ai

The global AI market size is expected to increase from $120bn in 2022 to $1.59tn by 2030, according to Precedence Research. It is a statistic of little surprise when AI can be deployed in so many instances. As Martin Broadhurst, of Broadhurst Digital, outlined, AI can immediately improve working practices, citing interesting uses for AI as an assistant, strategist and data analyst – all of which come hand-in-hand with the need for ethical practice.

Technology industry magazine Wired has already outlined in its publishing policy that it “does not publish stories with text generated by AI”.

As Ian Lockwood pointed out in his presentation, using AI for SEO is useful for suggesting ideas you may have missed, and for creating “raw” content and structure for editing. But AI-generated content must be used with caution, and always carefully reviewed and edited.

Content Is King

Since it draws off a dataset, AI does not always know what is accurate. A commitment to creating original, high-quality content was the plea to the audience from Paul Ince, of LikeMind Media. Performance in rankings aside, content that offers substantial value, and is different enough to what others are producing, can only enhance the customer experience.

Using Robots To Build Websites

Robot website builder, BYLDR.IO, was put to a live test when presenter Rob Gregory, of Magnifica Technologies, asked it to build and launch an on-thespot mountain bike website – a task that was achieved in under three minutes.

The process is a straightforward one: a human user provides some simple text prompts (build and launch a website on mountain bikes), AI returns the answers (in this case, creating a business name, domain name, products and blog post, and generating images), a robot builds the website pages, and a website is launched in a web browser.

The ability to shortcut digital processes at lighting speed is, of course, deeply compelling for businesses forever seeking to improve their bottom line.

The problem with AI, however, is it does not solve the challenge that every business has at its heart – how to differentiate itself from the competition, and for the long term.

What makes a business unique – a deep understanding of the products and services needed by its customers, its knowledgeable team, its quirkiness and the fact that it cares about its customers – are not qualities that can be replicated by AI anytime soon.

Presentations from the event can be downloaded from www.emc-dnl.co.uk/digital-marketing-conference-and-expo-2023

This event was part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and delivered by the Chamber. It is part of the Derbyshire Festival of Business – a schedule of events co-ordinated by the Chamber and the University of Derby.

Sign Up For A Workshop

Anyone wishing to explore SEO, inbound marketing or GA4 in more detail can do so at the Chamber’s two-day digital academies. Select the “workshops” and “digital & technology” filter at www.emc-dnl.co.uk/events to book a place.

Digital Events Programme

• Social media bootcamp: 11 and 12 April, Derby

• What’s new in e-mail marketing: 13 April, online

• Marketing essentials masterclass: 18 April, online

• Successful search engine optimisation: 18 and 25 April, Leicester

• Inbound marketing: 19 and 26 April, Leicester

• More visitors into sales and leads (two days): 20 and 27 April, Leicester

• Get to grips with GA4 and convert more visitors into sales and leads (two days): 20 and 27 April, Leicester

• Using technology to scale your business: 4 and 11 May, Nottingham

• Making the switch to GA4: 16 May, Nottingham

To sign up to these workshops, visit www.emc-dnl.co.uk/events

SMEs to get free software resources

Thousands of businesses will gain access to free resources that will help them get the most of Microsoft technologies as a new pilot scheme is rolled out across Leicestershire.

The Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP), via the Business Gateway Growth Hub delivered in partnership with the Chamber and other organisations, is working with Microsoft’s business support division to pilot an initiative to help SMEs get more from digital products that can help to grow their businesses.

The pilot will ensure SMEs from all sectors have access to a variety of productivity tools, as well as technical skills support.

Dozens of local businesses have already logged on to business support platforms since the programme went live in January.

Many small businesses will already have the required tools available, but will not be aware of ways to utilise them to their full potential.

Advice will range from ways to maximise the tools offered in everyday platforms, such as Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM systems, through to more specialist complex transformation projects.

Stewart Smith, head of skills and employment at the LLEP, said: “With this suite of business support resources, local businesses have the opportunity to upskill in digital technologies, increase productivity and make better use of the tools at their fingertips.”

SMEs can learn more about the free resources available through the Small Business Resource Centre at aka.ms/LEPSMB and via business consultations at aka.ms/LEPConsultation