Almost two years after the term Great Resignation was inventedmany companies are still struggling to hire enough workers in a context historically tight labor market. This is especially true for small business owners, who are increasingly taking inspiration from Silicon Valley in bringing in artificial intelligence to get the job done.
Main Street businesses are looking to AI as an alternative to rising labor costs that have threatened many of them with closures for months. Their adoption of the technology would be a huge shift from the way AI is currently used, primarily by larger companies that have more resources and are more cutting edge.
While only 11% of small business owners have tried AI to support their operations, 57% said they were eager to learn how generative AI products like ChatGPT could improve their business, according to a researcher. investigation published Thursday by come on daddy, an Internet service company. GoDaddy interviewed 1,003 small business owners in April for the survey.
Owners interested in implementing AI will likely be encouraged by the results of other small businesses that have already tried the technology. Three-quarters of companies that have used AI tools say they got at least very good results, with just 4% saying their business suffered.
“Small business entrepreneurs are quickly discovering that generative AI is already very well equipped to help them with the tasks they find the most difficult to accomplish, either because they don’t have the time or because they need skills outside of their wheelhouse,” Gourav Pani, president of American Independents covering American entrepreneurship at GoDaddy, said in a statement.
Most owners said AI has helped them delegate specific tasks like marketing, content writing, and customer service responses, freeing them up for other important responsibilities like growing customers and sales. income. This reflects a broader trend in which companies are exploring how AI tools like ChatGPT and equivalents developed by tech giants Microsoft And Google can automate more repetitive and generic tasks.
a february report by job board platform ResumeBuilder found that about half of business leaders implemented ChatGPT, and half had already used it to replace some employees, whose tasks included coding, creating content and customer support. Almost all businesses surveyed said the strategy saved them money, with 48% saying they saved more than $50,000 and 11% saying they saved more than $100,000.
AI could also be a game-changer for small businesses. Nearly half of small businesses had at least one vacant position in April, according to a report earlier this month by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, an association of small businesses. But consumer spending is still strong, the report said, meaning small businesses are still in dire need of workers to keep up with demand.
Among the major labor issues faced by small business owners are the lack of quality labor and the high cost of hiring. Commodity and wage inflation has been one of the reasons small business owners main concerns since last year, according to the Chamber of Commerce, and the recent banking crisis has also raised fears that loans from smaller regional banks, which are a lifeblood for small businesses, will dry up in a credit crunch.
“The labor market continues to be a big challenge for small business owners,” NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a statement accompanying this month’s report. “More and more owners are raising pay to compete, but the quality of labor remains a serious issue for owners.”
AI could help alleviate some of these pressures, although educational tools to help small businesses integrate AI into their operations would likely be helpful, as the majority of owners are unfamiliar with the technology. Only 33% of GoDaddy survey respondents said they could explain generative AI to a friend, while owners over 55, who in 2021 owned half of small businesses in the United States, were by far the least likely group to have experimented with AI
Businesses and AI experts have tried to bridge the gap that excluded small business owners from the benefits of technology. Already in 2021, the Chamber of Commerce was working with small and medium-sized businesses to communicate how AI could help entrepreneurs improve customer service, hiring and marketing strategies. Earlier this month, Microsoft released a guide to learn how small businesses in particular could use AI and the educational tools to implement it.
Small businesses are notoriously slow adopt new technologies, but their small size also makes them more flexible, so when they decide to adopt a new technology, it doesn’t take long to have an impact. If familiarity with AI improves, GoDaddy’s survey suggests, this could be the bridge that helps small businesses finally find their footing in today’s job market.