5 Immediate Steps to Ensure Your Business is Positioned to Excel in an AI Economy

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how businesses operate and deliver value to customers. It’s also creating a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of business and work in general. What kind of workforce will be ready and able to adapt to completely new ways of reaching and serving consumers? Will your cybersecurity systems be able to protect you against increasingly smarter and faster threats? How can you ensure that you adapt faster than your competition? As AI tools grow more powerful, small businesses are made especially vulnerable and should take proactive steps to succeed in an AI economy. Here are 5 immediate actions you can take to ensure your small business is prepared to thrive as AI becomes more prevalent:

1. Invest in Upskilling Your Workforce

Your people are your most valuable asset, so provide training on how staff can effectively use AI tools within their roles. Encourage learning new skills like prompt writing and data analysis that will complement AI systems. Build a culture of continuous learning about how to leverage AI.

Upskilled employees who understand how to augment their responsibilities with AI will be more productive in the short term and better prepared to adapt to new technologies in the long-term.

2. Evaluate Your Cybersecurity and AI Usage Policies

Carefully examine the data privacy and cybersecurity practices and systems you have in place, and consider how they could be expanded to better protect your company and client data. It’s also vitally important that you put clear policies in place for ethical AI usage throughout your organization.

Cyber threats are increasing rapidly, and AI tools only make these threats more serious, so properly secured systems and data responsibility will be key as we move into the future.

3. Foster an AI-ready Culture

Promote transparency, learning and responsible experimentation with AI among your staff. Similarly to your investment in upskilling your people, you should be adjusting your company culture to foster open conversations about how AI could impact roles and processes. Make space for testing AI innovations but stress accountability. Shaping an open and transparent company culture will provide a sense of stability and confidence within your workforce – which will be more and more appreciated as workers in all industries continue to worry and speculate about AI taking jobs away.

4. Audit Your Technology Stacks for Alignment with Your Company Goals

Take stock of your current technology platforms. Specifically, you want to identify gaps where new AI tools could create greater alignment with your overall business strategy and goals. It’s especially important now to phase out any legacy systems that your company may still be maintaining. These legacy systems offer no promise to keep up with the exponential increases in efficiency and productivity that AI systems will offer.

5. Partner with AI Experts

Very few companies do business in a vacuum. No doubt you’ve partnered with several vendors to round out your business operations. Consider how these vendors are adapting to an AI economy. Are they taking these same steps to better serve you, their customer, and protect your interest? You should have vendors whose expertise can complement your team’s skills and accelerate your adoption of AI tools.

The transition into an AI economy presents enormous opportunities – but also disruptions.

Taking these 5 immediate steps will prepare your business to excel in the emerging AI-powered economy. Invest in your people, shape your culture, upgrade your technology, and collaborate with experts to position your organization for future success.

Waypost is ready to serve your business in an AI-driven market. The steps outlined above are all steps that we have taken ourselves, and will continue to take as we move into a future filled with opportunity. We look forward to seeing our clients outpace their competition in the move to adopt better, faster, and smarter technologies; and we support them as they build company cultures that reflect a deep respect for their own employees and customers.