I'm essentially a fractional operating exec managing five different small businesses. I am overseeing all aspects of these business hence a lot of opportunities across various functions (engineering, HR, procurement, manufacturing, sales) to try out opportunities to utilize AI tools. I would say have been using Chat GPT paid version for about 4 months now in a work environment and the usage, including customized GPTs, has really picked up steam in the past two months. I have it open all the time and use it DAILY for various tasks. I think small business are perfect for this as they may not have the system /people strength that the larger corps have.
Here are some real world examples that we deployed over the past few weeks that are saving us considerable time and money....once again not huge teams making this happen, literally one person with the right prompting and identifying how to use the technology to improve workflow and cut time/expense.
- Customized Chat GPT for contract/T&Cs review. Now with the click of the button I am now getting redlined contracts ready for my review and submission back to clients. Key risk inputs (e.g. warranty terms, payment terms liability limits, liquidated damages, etc I provide "standard guidance" which is where the GPT starts from). At prior companies this would be dedicated contract resource and legal review. Took me about a day to get the GPT working and now I use this weekly and just continue to refine over time. When I got it working I seriously had an ah-ha moment....after reviewing contracts for years and years in various capacities this is a complete game changer for me.
- Two weeks ago we redesigned our logo, in the past we would have had some external graphics person do this. Now my sales director and I refine through prompts until we got exactly what we want in about an hour.
- Purchase Agreement - did a small company acquisition purchase agreement based on a prior deal we had done. Zero legal review, assessed risk and reworked the entire agreement as required via GPT conversation. I am sure a lawyer is reading this and saying we are dumbasses but we felt the risk was acceptable and went with it.
- Completely automated a manual process for getting quotes for bid processes. I essentially increased the productivity of one buyer overnight once we got this working, literally one buyer can do a 10 fold increase in work from this one workflow. We do not have any onboard coding/IT guys...we were able to do what we need with a GPT.
- GPT for P&L analysis (I have to manage 5 of them), gives me executive level insights with a click of the button.
- Just had a discussion today with my purchasing manager where she takes data out of our ERP, essentially massages it in excel, and reports our her weekly KPIs. Had her come in my office, setup a GPT and this now takes 10 seconds with a native PDF out of our ERP. So instead of spending time on getting the KPI data, she can now focus on what it is telling her and manage accordingly.
I could go on and on....seriously if any small business owners are wondering how to leverage this NOW and need help please reach out to me. My general observation is a majority of people have no clue what this can do for them in the work environment or just flat out aren't using it, and my second observation is at some point our productivity as a society will take a leap frog from where we are today. Invest accordingly.
Forgot to add, primarily using Chat GPT Business plan.
