AI Can Deliver Massive ROI !
RDI has 10+ years of success
We will be your guide …
AI is already delivering unprecedented, startling results in the business world. Our own projects have typically delivered 300%+ ROI in Year1, sometimes much greater than that. Yes, AI is a very new, raw, uneven set of technologies. But RDI has been a student and participant for many years, and we guide our clients toward “what works” (and away from what “doesn’t work”).
This page is an executive-introduction to AI for midsize business. Contact Isaac ( imalitz@rdic.com ) to evaluate specific possibilities for your business.
AI for Midsize Business: Executive Introduction
[1] Synopsis
AI is a group of technologies that evolved slowly for 70 years, until it reached a critical mass (know-how, software, data, money, focus) around 2020. This is when Elon Musk and his company OpenAI delivered ChatGPT. ChatGPT is the first true “killer app” in the field, it demonstrated shockingly-powerful, tangible results. Because of this, the field now has attracted massive money, talent, management, and demand which permanently establishes AI as a powerful capability for businesses who can use it astutely.
The situation for business leaders is that AI field is now overwhelmed with complexity, misinformation, misleading promotions. The purpose of this intro is to help business leaders get a reliable baseline, sense of direction. The good news is that many businesses can utilize AI now, with positive expectations for investment, effort, and returns.
[2] Three realistic uses of AI right now
[a] Increase your pipeline of sales prospects
Most successful companies have a steady pipeline of prospective customers (new or repeat); but their techniques for building and prioritizing are far from optimal. If your pipeline can be augmented by a factor of 10%, this can result in a sales increase of 10%. And AI is very good for this. RDI began developing this technique 10 years ago, and the results have been amazing. (We have begun to productize this technology). The costs etc. of trying this technology are reasonable, straightforward.
[b] Incorporate AI into you company’s website
Simple AI tools can be used to make the prose, images, and meta-tags of your website “smarter” and more productive. You can tune your site into how your audience thinks. Also – very important – you can correlate your site with how Google and other search engines think, which is important to SEO search positions. Google has provided technical guidance to the I.T. community, that it wants all websites to be “AI-aware”, this will be a key factor for search position, etc. in the future. So, it is safe to say that this issue is a requirement of every business that has a website.
[c] Augment your own “business-smarts” by using ChatGPT (and similar tools) as an “Executive Assistant”
ChatGPT, Bing, etc. are excellent for assistive tasks such as the following:
- Fine-tuning prose correspondence
- Fine-tuning marketing literature, advertising
- Assessing trends in your industry, competition, and hot-buttons. (Some AI tools are now being enabled with huge databases about industries and markets)
- Develop compelling visual images
- Assess risks (E.g. “Is this prospective employee for real, or a faker?” “Is this new customer a credit risk?” “How dangerous is our current fast-growth rate?”)
- Evaluate budgets – too much too little
- Scan incoming emails from all sources to look for trends, positive or negative
- Patent / Intellectual Property research
- Critique a business plan
- Do financial analysis from business history
With some light guidance, you can acquaint yourself with capabilities like this quickly. This kind of capability is evolving rapidly, so it is a good idea to start getting acquainted now.
[3] Four bad ideas
As a rule of thumb, the following applications of AI are not a good idea for midsize business:
[a] Live ChatBots for customer service
Many large companies are trying to use AI as live telephone receptionists. Most of these are hated by customers. Live chatbots are possible, but there is big expense and risk to develop them.
[b] Employee evaluation with AI
Many distortions and errors possible, also regulatory and PR issues.
[c] Business process automation
Not a bad idea in theory. But in practice the expenses and risks tend to be large, and the ROI low. E.g. to develop an AI process for product-returns/RMA: Detailed analysis of your specific policies and scenarios; then build/train/test/revise your AI software. Even after launch, you must be on the alert for unreasonable rejections of a customer return, these can be “bad for business”. The ROI for this effort/cost/risk tend to be relatively modest – is it worth it.
[d] AI-driven investment advice
It appears that large investment houses are using AI carefully as part of investment strategies. But the research we are aware of is that most such AI is imperfect; its value is not to find a “sure thing” but rather to “gain an edge” in certain investment strategies. This kind of AI activity involves big financial/technical commitments and the most careful management of risk and opportunity. Small companies should not try this.
[4] Perspective on AI
[a] In the world of AI, the name of the game for small business is: ROI
- Some uses of AI can provide substantial returns (or big returns) with only modest investment – off-the-shelf software, common-sense strategies. There are products available to you that required billion-dollar investments and major risk; but you can rent the products at low cost and cash in on the benefits.
- On the other hand, some uses of AI require long business analysis, software development, AI “training” cycles – and produce underwhelming ROI. Avoid.
- We have frequently seen AI projects with an ROI of 3-to-1 in Year1; and we have seen ROI’s as high 100-to-1 or even more. Take your time, and try to find an AI project with a big payoff. RDI is experienced and practical about this, we will help!
[b] AI of course is a fast-evolving industry. But the factors that drive it are straightforward to understand:
- In the AI industry, successful products have usually been a combination of: Long experience; clever (but not usually ingenious) software; and huge amounts of data.
- It takes huge data (and time) to “train” a typical AI product. Also, a product like ChatGPT incorporates massive informational databases.
- A corollary of #2, is that most of the R&D for AI products is driven by big money, big companies (OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, …). Watch those companies.
- Because of successes with AI in the last few years, there is astronomical money being invested in the industry. This will translate into ultra-fast growth in the AI field.
- AI technology is evolving faster than even the experts can track, so expect surprises. And be careful.
- Many good off-the-shelf products at low prices.