Why 2024 is the most critical year in AI.
Adapt, close it down, or hand it off to someone who will adapt.
These are your three options when it comes to AI + business.
While many believe that they still have years or even decades until they need to worry about AI becoming more than just a silly thing on the internet, those following the progress and, more importantly, the money know that we are talking about massive changes happening right now. Not in 10 years - right now.
All you have to do is look at what’s happening with Nvidia. Although the company was founded to develop gaming GPUs (graphics processing units), its hardware has become crucial for AI and machine learning because of processing capabilities, high bandwidth memory, and scalability. Nvidia is deemed incredibly valuable as a company that will form the backbone of AI computing. They are considered so valuable that their market value has landed them in the 4th overall spot in the world in market capitalization. This valuation comes off of positive earnings reports quarter over quarter for the past few years. Their total revenue rose by 256% in 2023, with about $60 Billion in revenue. This amazing $2 Trillion + valuation should tell you all you need to know about how important AI is to businesses and major investors.
To put it in perspective, Nvidia has leapfrogged Tesla, Meta (formerly Facebook), Amazon, and Alphabet (Google), and sits only behind Apple, Microsoft, and Saudi Aramco in valuation. The market may tell us that AI is so powerful that it has already begun taking away market share from social media, e-commerce, and electric vehicles.
How does this major market movement affect small to mid-sized business owners? Well, the proof is in the pudding. Those sitting at the table are convinced that their money will be compounded by investing in AI. Does that mean you should, too?
I say yes. Maybe just a tiny portion of your budget at the beginning (0-5%) to see some verified results/benefits, but you should at least be taking a hard look into it. An owner or employee typically wears multiple hats at once for a small to mid-sized business. Sometimes, you do the marketing, sales, engineering, fulfillment, logistics, finances, and HR all in one day. If that’s you, AI can already be utilized to simplify your workload. Most people feel safe with a simple chatbot if they want to see how but don’t know where to start. Let’s dive into adding a chatbot to your business system below.
How can we integrate a chatbot or SMS via WhatsApp into your business website? Here are 3 steps.
Identify Objectives
Start by defining what you want the chatbot to achieve. Typical objectives include answering frequently asked questions (FAQs), assisting with bookings or purchases, providing customer support, or gathering leads.
Develop or Select Your Chatbot (we do this for you!)
Depending on your resources and requirements, you can either develop a custom chatbot or use a pre-built solution from a chatbot platform. Building your own offers more customization but requires more resources. Pre-built solutions are quicker to deploy and often come with user-friendly interfaces for designing chat flows. We highly recommend building a custom chatbot with Smithd for a more complex business.
Smithd can map out users’ conversation paths when interacting with the chatbot. This includes crafting responses for various user inputs and determining how the chatbot should guide users to their desired outcomes.
Implement and Test
For website chatbots, the implementation typically involves adding a snippet of code to your website's HTML. Most chatbot platforms provide this code, which links your site to the chatbot.
For WhatsApp, after obtaining access to the WhatsApp Business API, you'll need to follow the API documentation to set up your chatbot. This often involves server setup and configuring webhooks to handle messages between your chatbot and WhatsApp users.
Before going live, thoroughly test the chatbot to ensure it handles various conversation paths correctly. Test for expected and unexpected user inputs to gauge the chatbot's effectiveness and response accuracy.
After launching, collect user feedback and monitor chatbot performance. Use this information to refine and improve conversation flows and functionality over time.
If your business could benefit from this, reach out today!
