What is the best way to learn AI for a small business?
Rebuild one real process you already run, rather than working through generic prompt lists. Retention is far higher when the output is something you would have had to write yourself that day anyway.
The Blu Sky Factory answer
Taught by Derek Whitaker
A business needs to consider how it will compete or exist in the age of AI. How will it compete against larger companies using AI and what systems does it need to build to be able to handle the changes ahead. The advantage smaller businesses have is they can pivot quickly. A larger organisation takes time to turn to ship around. AI lowers the entry point in getting access to sophisticated technology once reserved for those positioned in Silicon Valley.
Considerations are as follows:
Understand clearly that AI's biggest advantage is speed. Increasing productivity in an accurate way is the biggest leaver AI can deliver. An established business needs to consider what's the biggest need or problem it needs to fix internally? Can a system or tool be developed to ensure it's fixed permanently or done better. What tasks are necessary but not profitable that can be automated to free up the owners time?
Understand learning AI happens in stages. The first in understanding what it is and isn't capable of. Usually a few smaller tasks are tried but the clear inroads begin to emerge when an owner can see the tools it can build.
Prompt lists fail for the same reason phrasebooks fail. They give you the sentence without the grammar, so the moment the situation differs slightly from the example, there is nothing to reason from.
Picking a real process solves that, and it solves the motivation problem at the same time. A quote that has to go out this afternoon is a better teacher than a hypothetical exercise, because the standard is real: it either works well enough to send or it does not.
Start with something repetitive, language-heavy and genuinely on your own time. The return shows up immediately, which is what sustains the habit long enough for the second and third process to follow.
- ◆Pick one process you already run every week.
- ◆Repetitive and language-heavy first — that is where the return is.
- ◆Real output beats exercises: the standard is whether you would actually send it.
- ◆The second and third process come much faster than the first.
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