|
The task you repeat every week. The marketing copy you keep putting off. The information that takes too long to organize. For small businesses exploring artificial intelligence, those everyday frustrations can be a useful place to start.
This was the focus of The Chamber’s Oct. 28 Small Business B(AI)sics workshop at Dakota Medical Foundation. This free training, made possible through a grant from the U.S. Chamber Foundation with support from Google, featured AI consultant and trainer Chris Allen. It was designed to help participants explore practical solutions to everyday business challenges.
“The goal today is for you to find one pain point in your work world and for us to figure out a fix for it using AI,” Allen said.
Participants considered challenges across business operations, sales and marketing, customer service, human resources and finance. Working at their tables, they developed prompts and tested approaches to their own tasks.
One takeaway you can apply immediately: Give AI the situation, the goal and the format you need. For marketing tasks, Allen encouraged adding the intended audience and desired tone. A request for a short customer email should explain who it is for and what it should accomplish.
“If you take a little time and you think through it, you’ll get a much, much better output,” Allen said.
He also shared how a reusable prompt helped a real estate company bring consistency to property descriptions. Agents could enter details such as bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage while following a shared approach to tone.
The session paired experimentation with responsibility. Allen urged participants to protect sensitive information and review AI-generated work.
“You have to check it. Make sure this is still coming from you in the end,” he said.
His closing encouragement was to keep practicing beyond the workshop. Start with one recurring task, explain what you need, review the result and refine your request. Then build on what works.
| 
