THE BLUEPRINT:
Meta and the Long Island Association cohosted an AI training event
Nearly 50 small business owners learned how to apply AI tools
Topics included AI use in marketing, data, hiring and automation
Event is part of Meta’s nationwide small business outreach strategy
To help local business owners enhance their proficiency with artificial intelligence tools – and to engage those who may be apprehensive about AI – Meta cohosted a half-day training event on Thursday in partnership with the Long Island Association.
“The idea behind these community accelerator events is to really meet small businesses where they are, both in terms of geographic location and skill and interest level,” Diana Doukas, Meta’s head of Economic Opportunity and Advocacy, told LIBN.
“What we are trying to do is bring the best practices and ways to approach AI for small businesses so that they feel equipped and more comfortable about either integrating it into their own business practices or at least exploring how it may be able to make their business more efficient.”
The training session comes at a time when adopting AI and other new technologies – which can help small businesses grow and stay competitive – remains a challenge for many owners. While nearly 25 percent of owners use AI, 63 percent say that such technology will be important to their industry to some degree in the next five years, according to a June survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).
“Small business owners are our nation’s top source of innovation, yet many small businesses struggle to keep up with technological advancements,” Holly Wade, executive director of the NFIB Research Center, said in a news release about the survey.
Thursday’s workshop aimed to navigate those challenges.
“AI is rapidly transforming how we do business, and this workshop administered by Meta provided guidance to regional small business owners about tools to integrate in their operations and support their customer engagement and communication,” Matt Cohen, LIA president and CEO, said.
But new technology can be daunting, Doukas pointed out.
“We want to make it as easily accessible as possible,” she said.
At the training, the nearly 50 attendees were guided as to how to engineer prompts, and how to use AI in marketing, company data analysis, writing job descriptions and “some of the more tactical things that business owners have to do on a day-to-day basis,” Doukas said.
The NFIB survey found that 29 percent of small business respondents are using – or plan to use – AI for such communications as email, memos and documents, while 27 percent are using it for marketing or advertising. There were 4 percent who use AI for business analysis or predictive analysis and 9 percent who use it for customer service. Another 4 percent used it for accounting and process automation, while 4 percent also said they used it for cybersecurity or fraud detection.
Thursday’s session was designed so that people could ask questions and learn from participants to see how they were using the technology.
Meta is hosting these workshops across the country. While the workshops include an intro to Meta AI, the strategies can be used with other AI tools as well.
Meta’s workshops come at a time when the company is accelerating its artificial intelligence initiatives amid intensifying industry competition. On Friday, Meta announced the appointment of Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as chief scientist of the newly launched Meta Superintelligence Labs, according to published reports.
At the same time, the company is launching a more personalized, one-on-one engagement strategy.
“As society and the economy starts to adopt AI more, we want to make sure that small businesses especially have the tools so they can adopt and compete at the same time,” Doukas said.
