Conversations around artificial intelligence tend to head toward two extremes.
Detractors warn that AI may push reality closer to “Roko’s Basilisk” — the name for a thought experiment in which robots take over and punish the humans who don’t work for them. Enthusiasts, on the other hand, declare that advancements in AI technologies mean that, pretty soon, not one person will have to lift a finger in labor.
The reality is somewhat more benign, admits the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center’s (SBDC) self-anointed “AI Explorers,” Amy Bruner Zimmerman, an SBDC senior consultant, and Heather Ferguson, an SBDC program manager.
But it’s no less exciting, they add — especially for entrepreneurs in Madison and across the state.
Through free or low-cost workshops, classes, one-on-one consultations and more with the Wisconsin SBDC at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Business School, Bruner Zimmerman and Ferguson assist local business owners in investigating how to use AI to the advantage of their small businesses in myriad ways. AI programs can’t necessarily run a restaurant by themselves, but they can help outline a business plan, suggest questions for an accountant and offer advice on how to best design a menu, for example.
The director of the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center, Michelle Somes-Booher, and owner of Little Luxuries, Amy Moore, utilized an AI program to generate the image above. Moore then used the image as a starting point for designing her “real-life” window display.
Take the experiences of Garth Beyer, founder of Garth’s Brew Bar on Monroe Street and a Wisconsin SBDC client, who has used AI for everything from newsletter content creation to operations and financial monitoring.
Or those of Amy Moore, owner of State Street shop Little Luxuries, who worked with Wisconsin SBDC director Michelle Somes-Booher on using AI to brainstorm and design the layout of a holiday window display.
“At the end of the day, time is a [business owner’s] most precious asset,” says Beyer. “So to be able to leverage AI in a few different ways to save me even just a couple of hours a week … that is game-changing. Because that’s three hours a week that I could put towards thinking of another revenue stream or connecting more with the community.”
Still, Ferguson — as does Beyer — cautions against viewing AI tools as infallible or straightforwardly perfect, something that will ultimately and completely replace human abilities.
“It’s not magic,” she says. “I think it’s important for business owners to understand that if you try to use it to write your whole business plan, it’s going to create the most statistically likely response — meaning the most generic.”
Rather, it should be viewed as “just another tool,” says Bruner Zimmerman. And, like with any tool or instrument, successful usage comes with time and practice.
Somes-Booher points to a recent paper, “The Uneven Impact of Generative AI on Entrepreneurial Performance,” published by researchers from Harvard Business School, the University of California, Berkeley and MIT as evidence of AI as “just another tool” rather than “The Terminator” come to fruition.
The study found that differences in business success while using AI had less to do with the technology itself, and more to do with how the humans themselves decided to select and implement the advice they received from that technology. That’s something that Ferguson and Bruner Zimmerman remind anyone who decides to work with them at the SBDC.
And that’s also what Beyer emphasizes to his own employees and other small business owners who may be on the fence about AI use.
“I think it’s critical for folks, as they’re exploring AI tools, that they engage their team members as much as possible with it,” he says.
Beyers encourages his employees at Garth’s Brew Bar, for example, to try out different AI programs that might be useful in helping them complete their duties on the job. Even when it doesn’t end up being helpful, he believes the learning experience is valuable nonetheless.
To learn more about the Wisconsin SBDC, visit www.sbdc.wisc.edu.
Alisyn Amant is an editorial intern at Madison Magazine.
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