Why Now Is the Time to A.I. Audit
Your Business
A.I.
isn’t an optional add-on. It’s foundational and roughly equivalent to
electricity or the internet.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
Jun 17,
2025
In most of my
conversations over the last year with new business owners and seasoned
operators, all of whom are all concerned about ChatGPT’s impact on the economy,
I’ve found an interesting contradiction in the way entrepreneurs are
approaching the use and incorporation of A.I. I see a whole lot of wait and see. Is
it a genius or a clown?
While the novelty is
starting to wear off, and the hiccups and hallucinations are certainly reasons
for caution, the critical need to investigate, engage with and integrate these
new technologies has yet to be fully appreciated and folded into the planning
and operations of millions of businesses that really can’t afford to wait.
They’re taking their time when the time to move is now and the timing couldn’t
be more critical.
It’s not that hard to
see why they’re conflicted. They’ve lived their entire business lives
trying to be innovators, first movers and early adopters of new technologies in
order to stay ahead of the competition. The “ready, fire, aim” attitude has mostly
served them well over the years. But the truth is that smart entrepreneurs are
far more careful and conservative than we’ve been led to believe. In fact, many
are control freaks.
So, when they’re
confronted with a pitch that basically says they should turn over some of their
business processes to the “machine” because it will be good for their bottom
line, they’re more than a little wary and reluctant to jump right in. 00:0001:49
Add to their basic
mindset the fact that they understand almost nothing about how these black
boxes really work, that they rarely have anyone presently onboard who can help
them learn or who is up-to-speed on AI themselves, and that things seem to be
moving ahead and changing at a ridiculously rapid pace. This makes for a
perfect formula for angst and analysis paralysis. But, as is always the case,
worrying never gets you anywhere and standing still is never the right
solution. A bad decision is often better than no decision at all.
The good news is that
there are simple and cost-effective steps forward –“toes in the water” if you
will – that every company can take to get the ball rolling, and none are “bet
the ranch” actions or expensive decisions. They’re simply smart ways to get
smarter sooner.
Every business today
needs to conduct an AI audit if they don’t want to be left behind. AI isn’t an
optional add-on at this point; it’s foundational and roughly equivalent to
electricity or the internet. In the call center industry, for example, it’s now
estimated that AI
agents will handle 70 percent of all contacts by 2028.
The first order of
business doesn’t require technologists or AI experts. It’s simply a
comprehensive review by your senior leaders of various areas of the business
where AI may be able to help. Not, to be sure, by working immediate miracles
(in spite of all the hype about eliminating hundreds of jobs overnight), but by
helping you identify improvements, import better practices, and eliminate
obstacles in your current operations.
In my experience, this
audit and review exercise also encourages your people to do some wishful
thinking, to look forward to what could be, and to even think outside of their
day-to-day, nose-to-the-grindstone activities and responsibilities. It’s a literal
license to iterate and constantly improve.
Broadly speaking, I’d
break the critical categories down into four major buckets: automation of
various internal processes, automation of various external processes, cleaning
up and streamlining basic operations, and all your employee issues from augmentation,
robotics, and realignment to concerns around recruitment and retention.
Once you’ve built a hit
list and a wish list, you can bring in some professional help, a prompt engineer or two, and other AI resources to
start building some solutions. Here are four examples.
Internal processes
The long-term dream of a
paperless digital world remains a remote and ambitious fantasy for millions of
companies still drowning in reams of paper reports, receipts, requisitions, and
records of all kinds. From the accounting department to the shipping center and
personnel department, AI tools will create massive improvements in the
traditional systems and antiquated procedures used in virtually every business,
government agency and regulatory authority. Automation, digital records and
AI-enabled identification processes will improve diagnostics in medical
facilities, security in all of our transportation hubs and public areas, and in
the entire finance world.
External processes
As the world becomes
increasingly comfortable with ATMs, self-service checkout counters, and other
forms of automation, AI systems can speed up, simplify, enhance and scale all
of your front-of-house interactions with customers, clients and consumers including
sales, service, and support. Millions of bank customers already acknowledge
that they would rather not deal with a teller if efficient alternatives were
available. AI tools can also streamline, simplify and optimize websites which,
in many instances, companies haven’t reviewed or updated in years to improve
customer experience and speed up the process.
Basic operations
Real-time review,
ongoing support and enhancement, and timely intervention to avoid problems,
breakdowns and other system interruptions are already being implemented in
manufacturing firms around the world. The ability to project needs, demands and
resource requirements will build even further upon the economic success of many
just-in-time supply and warehousing chains and save huge amounts of time and
money. Having AI systems review months or years of prior actions and activities
and generate detailed analytics on the fly will provide insights, new
directions, and even concrete suggestions for process improvements and better
use of personnel and other materials and resources.
People
AI and related
intelligent agentic devices and robotics can augment and supplement the work
done by your employees to improve accuracy, capacity and safety as well as
avoiding burnout, repetitive behavior injuries, and human errors. Systems are
already being designed to identify, evaluate and categorize job applicants on a
variety of criteria, to assist in scaling and speeding their documentation,
onboarding and training, and to outline and create multi-year individualized
career paths for each team member which serve as great recruiting tools and
help to manage education, expectations and attitudes as well as improving
retention. MIT and Nvidia Research have already developed a new algorithm that
enables a robot to “think ahead” in a planning process and evaluate thousands
of alternative paths in seconds.
The bottom line is, you
don’t know what you don’t know about your own business until you ask. Now’s the
time to start asking. There’s no better, more cost-effective system than an AI
system built for and based upon your own data as well as employing comparable
data and other information drawn from the industry, your competitors’ reports
and activities, and all manner of other external information and data sources.
An AI audit is step number one.
