In November 2022, Chat GPT made artificial intelligence widely accessible to entrepreneurs, perhaps for the first time. What followed was a wave of business owners figuring out how to use AI to save time, increase production, make more money and stand out in their field.
The AI dilemma for entrepreneurs: act now or wait?
The bandwagon followed the buzz, resulting in the launch of new tools on an hourly basis. After that came a sense of disillusionment among users as the reality did not live up to the hype and the sales pages overpromised. You may be wondering: is now the time to get involved in AI, or should you wait a little longer?
Why you might want to go all-in with AI
There is land grabbing involved, as with every technological revolution of the past. The industrial revolution, the personal computing revolution, the world wide web revolution and more. In all cases, the biggest profits went to the first movers. The tinkerers, the explorers. The people who understood the concept and dreamed big about what it could mean for their company and customers.
Those who watched, waited, and jumped on board a little later still won, sure, but the gains were marginal compared to the early adopters. If you remain silent, you will fall behind those who innovate. Those people include your current and future competitors as they figure out how to serve your target audience in a cheaper, faster, and higher quality way.
If you start playing with the tools now, you’ll benefit from being among their first few clients. You get the early offers, you get access to the soon to expire rates. You send your feedback and ideas for new features and the founders actually listen. You co-create with creators and they adapt the platform exactly to your needs. You understand how to use them to your advantage before everyone is on board.
If you start building tools now, you will attract the attention of researchers, the ones who can become your customers for life. In addition to the users, you may get more publicity. AI directories are hungry to add new platforms. AI Shrine, AI Tool mall, Future tools and many others proudly show off what makers are launching. What you do is more newsworthy and you benefit from the novelty factor as your tool may be the first of its kind. First mover advantage should not be ignored.
The AI dilemma for entrepreneurs: act now or wait?
The benefits of waiting
The opportunities of artificial intelligence and its application within your company are not without challenges. It’s not just a matter of signing up and changing your everyday life instantly. Securing real benefits takes time: planning, analyzing and building processes around new tools. There is integration to think about. A whole new set of skills is required. Then there are the costs. Most tools are not free and they need to be set up properly to reap the benefits. What you save on freelancers you may spend on the entrepreneur’s brain space, and that energy has to come from somewhere.
Building tools is no sinecure either. Your regular programmers may not know how to do this. You have to learn the jargon. You won’t know how to direct AI developers or how to judge their results. Without understanding the field in detail, you cannot imagine what is possible and therefore you do not know how to build the future. Perhaps over time this will be an easier process with a proven blueprint. You could just wait for the seminars and courses and go with the teachers that show up.
Assuming you believe artificial intelligence is here to stay, and that it will only get better as the technology evolves exponentially through research and practice, you may want to play the long game. Instead of experimenting now, let other people make the mistakes. You let the guinea pigs do their thing and you learn from their findings.
Meanwhile, stick with what you know. You continue to build your business without the help of AI and you do not waste time on the learning curve or money on the new tools that you have not yet budgeted for.
There is merit in waiting. If you already have a winning idea and your business is growing, you may not want to change anything. You may not want to risk your team members learning new things or your customers having to get used to a new way of working. You may not want the potential downsides of using AI platforms or building your own. Putting on the blinkers can be how you choose to move forward.
What is the solution?
The answer to this is different for every entrepreneur. Assess the cost-benefit of exploring AI at this exact time to work out the way forward for you. Determine when is the optimal time for you to climb the learning curve from the bottom up. Avoid the risks of both trading and waiting.
Whatever your strategy, decide and stick to it. Stay oblivious, have tunnel vision and stick to what you know, or learn and go all in. Getting stuck in the middle of it can be confusing for everyone. You don’t know how to spend your time, you don’t have enough knowledge to properly implement AI in your company, so you switch back and forth with little return.
If you decide to go all in, you’ll get hungry. Watch a YouTube video every day about using AI in your industry. Read the white papers. Experiment with clues. Follow experienced AI professionals on Twitter and ask them questions. Book time with developers to get a behind-the-scenes look. Try to understand the core of artificial intelligence so that you can create the vision and execute accordingly. There is no right or wrong answer, and only you hold the keys to your AI destiny.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.