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In our last piece we outlined the two generation of AI that are empowering businesses to achieve more, using less time and resources, as well as some of the many possible benefits that your business can enjoy from using it. For small businesses, getting started with applying AI does not have to be overly complicated. It all starts with mapping technological territories and workflows, identifying the potential for AI-driven solutions to address challenges and add value, and creating a roadmap for implementing these solutions into the business.
A 2022 government report exploring the adoption of the latest generation of AI technologies such as data analytics and machine learning, provides some interesting insights.
Around 68% of large companies, 34% of medium sized companies, and 15% of small companies have adopted at least one next-gen AI technology. The majority of businesses have adopted or plan to adopt next-gen AI technology in the coming years, and even though adoptions of it are correlated to size, many innovative firms of all sizes are adopting AI today.
The good news is that in the next few years, it’s unlikely that most small businesses are going to be swept away by competitors using this form of AI, and this is also a great opportunity to start getting ahead and laying out a roadmap, including for simpler business process automations. On the other hand, further down the line, adopting the next generation of AI will become increasingly necessary to maintain a competitive edge.
So, how can your business get started with adopting AI to automate its defined business processes and to access more advanced features such as data analytics? Here are the three key steps:
Start by mapping out the technology that you use to undertake your workflows and list what automations could be possible within them. Some items on this list may be more viable for your business than others, but that’s okay, the next step will examine if they can be realised or not. There are other more certain opportunities within the technology that you might already be using. For example, many businesses are missing on some low-hanging fruit in their Microsoft 365 environment, which offers automation capabilities via its Power Automate tool.
By mapping your workflows and the tools involved in them, you can start to create a list of ideas for either enhancing or automating aspects of your workflows to empower your business.
This step involves doing your homework and looking around for tools such as software, that can be used to automate or empower aspects of your workflows. You may be surprised by what you find! This research can pay off by helping you to find solutions, understand how they work and how compatible they are with your business, and with these insights, a better understanding of how they can be integrated into your business.
Assessment will also be crucial, as it is not always easy to quantify the benefit of a new technology solution without careful consideration. By comparing what new solutions can offer, and how they can benefit your business, you will be able to prioritise the solutions that stand to contribute the most value.
You may already have a technology roadmap that AI-driven solutions can be integrated into, or perhaps you may want to make a roadmap from scratch. Either way, the roadmap lays out the timelines, steps, and considerations for implementing AI-driven solutions in your business in a way that will minimise disruption. The roadmap should be segmented into projects for each implementation, that will allow you to work with stakeholders, budget appropriately, prepare your business, and ensure a smooth series of implementations as your roadmap unfolds.
The roadmap will help you to prioritise the solutions to implement and provide a realistic timeline for preparing your business to integrate it fully. In all, it’s your practical plan for realising the benefits of AI in your business.
We hope that this piece has been a useful guide for getting started on your journey with AI. Remember, there is plenty of time to undertake careful planning to prepare your business for the transition, and many other businesses will likely be in a similar position. That said, the sooner you can get started, the more your business will be able to get ahead of the competition and use AI as a lever for achieving more profitable growth.
4TC can support you with all the services you need to run your business effectively, from email and domain hosting to fully managing your whole IT infrastructure. Setting up a great IT infrastructure is just the first step. Keeping it up-to-date, safe and performing at its peak requires consistent attention.
We can act as either your IT department or to supplement an existing IT department. We pride ourselves in developing long-term relationships that add value to your business with high quality managed support, expert strategic advice, and professional project management. Get assistance with your IT challenges today by getting in touch, we’ll be glad to assist you!
The adoption of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in business is gathering pace across the world, standing to offer tremendous benefits to businesses that get ahead of the curve of adoption. The accessibility of AI has also exploded in research years, with small and medium businesses able to access and deploy it like never before.
The benefits on offer are vast. Fundamentally, AI enables businesses to achieve more, using less time and resources. With the next generation of AI available today, it also offers data-driven insights that can empower business strategies, marketing outreach efforts and operations, among many other areas. In this piece we will introduce you to AI, break it down into two generations, and outline what it can do in businesses. In our next piece, we will give you a handy guide for getting started with applying it in your business.
As the name implies, AI describes technology that mimics human intelligence. AI is able to work with information based on categories and rules. Let’s take an example of a business that has a contact form on its website to take enquiries. When a key detail such as a phone number is missing, AI can recognise this, and prompt the user to enter the missing number. Now this is a simple example in today’s world! AI is also capable of far more complex tasks, as is commonly seen now with ChatGPT’s ability to answer highly specific and abstract questions alike.
To understand the scope of benefits that AI can bring to a business, we can simplify it into two generations. The first of these is based on explicit and specific instructions, while the newer generation is able to work with vast datasets and operate under uncertain conditions.
The first generation of AI has been around for decades and is sometimes termed ‘narrow’ AI. This kind of AI could take and carry out explicit instructions and follow a concrete process. This technology is still very useful today and underpins a variety of businesses processes; taking a somewhat more sophisticated example, a program can be designed to flag invoices of a certain amount by sending an automated email address to a designated email address in a finance department.
While valuable, a new generation of ‘broad’ AI is emerging that can solve more complicated problems and use past data to make even better decisions and suggestions. The new generation uses large datasets, cloud technology, and machine learning algorithms to derive correlations and predictions in real time for users. Let’s outline a few key examples.
The next generation of AI is already present in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and will be extended with the release of Microsoft’s CoPilot. For example, when you’re designing a PowerPoint presentation, broad AI is what enables it to offer design suggestions that reflect the wording and structure of the content you’re writing; while ChatGPT can take a set of meeting notes and a prompt of criteria and then structure it into an action plan. This generation of AI is being used in a range of other areas too, for business intelligence, marketing design, planning and much more.
For a small business, using AI is most practically possible through Software as a Solution (SaaS) providers that have inbuilt AI functionalities. This includes the Microsoft 365 platform, but a business can also take advantage of AI-driven features through accounting, marketing and project management solutions. There are some solutions that are a step further, such as using Microsoft 365’s Power BI (Business Intelligence) platform, which can create data-driven insights after it is fed a structured set of data inputs.
The benefits of applying AI are wide-ranging but include:
We hope that this guide has been useful for understanding AI and the scope of what is possible for your small business. Of course, applying AI to its full potential will take time, but by understanding what can be achieved you can start to chart a course to adopting it, which will sharpen your competitive edge and empower your business in a range of areas. In our next piece, we will give you a three-step guide for getting started with applying AI in your business.
4TC can support you with all the services you need to run your business effectively, from email and domain hosting to fully managing your whole IT infrastructure. Setting up a great IT infrastructure is just the first step. Keeping it up-to-date, safe and performing at its peak requires consistent attention.
We can act as either your IT department or to supplement an existing IT department. We pride ourselves in developing long-term relationships that add value to your business with high quality managed support, expert strategic advice, and professional project management. Get assistance with your IT challenges today by getting in touch, we’ll be glad to assist you!
In our last piece, we discussed the rise and fall of ISDN as a telephony solution for businesses and contrasted its growing disadvantages with the benefits of modern solutions such as VoIP, with the example of the Microsoft Teams Phone System. With ISDN and PSTN networks being completely taken offline by 2025, it’s essential for businesses to prepare to transition. In this piece, we will give a general step by step guide for migrating from ISDN-based telephony to a cloud-based telephony solution.
The simplicity of leveraging many cloud solutions has made arranging the transition to a new solution generally easier than it used to be, however, it’s still important to map your telephony territory and to ensure that a smooth transition can be undertaken for your business.
Firstly, although ISDN is an outdated solution, no two businesses are the same. There may be some (albeit rarer) cases where keeping ISDN telephony continues to be more cost-effective for now.
Begin by assessing your current communication needs and the opportunities around in the market. What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of your existing ISDN setup? By assessing the pros and cons around features, pricing, and potential transition costs (more on that shortly), you can move with confidence to planning a transition.
VoIP and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) offer beneficial alternatives to the vast majority of businesses today. In a nutshell, for a business VoIP can be a virtually wireless solution (excepting internet broadband lines), while SIP offers a still modern alternative that’s often useful to larger organisations that wish to rely on copper line lines.
Whichever solution you choose within these two umbrellas, it’s important to get clear on how they will be implemented for your particular business, based on its IT environment, infrastructure and commercial needs.
A technology expert that understands the ins and outs of telephony and connectivity can take much of the legwork and stress out of the process for your business. When selecting a provider to help with the transition, consider their expertise, the specific solution’s reliability, customer support, scalability and pricing.
In partnership with a provider, the planning for the migration can be arranged in a way that minimises disruption and risk for your business. Considering how the migration will effect the way that services such as customer support will be provided, are among the considerations to factor in to ensure a smooth transition.
For modern telephony solutions, a reliable and fast internet connection will do the most justice to your new setup and maximise the benefits that it has to offer. Good connectivity will be essential for reliable and quality calling. You can consult with a Managed Service Provider to ensure that your network infrastructure is prepared to support the chosen solution
Transfer your existing contact lists, call logs, and any other pertinent data to the new platform. At this stage, you can also begin to tap into the new benefits that your solution can offer, by integrating the data with your other applications, notably your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
Provide comprehensive training to your employees to acquaint them with the new system. Highlight the benefits, features, and any alterations in operational processes and offer support to make the transition as smooth and supportive as possible.
Prior to the full go-live of your new telephony system, it’s best practice to carry out testing and pilot runs to ensure that it works as desired. As you test the solution, document any issues or concerns that arise so that you can address them ahead of the roll out.
Depending on the size and context of your business, a phased implementation can be helpful for ensuring that the process is a smooth one that works at scale. Begin by using a smaller group of users, such as a particular department that is well placed to use and benefit from your new telephony solution, and just like the testing phase, carefully document any lessons learned that can then be applied across the business.
Migrating from ISDN telephony to a VoIP or SIP based solution can seem like a daunting process, but with planning, assessment, and a phased-implementation with the support of a telephony solutions provider, the process can be much more smooth and seamless. There are many benefits to using a VoIP or SIP based solution compared to traditional ISDN telephony that stand to augment communications and productivity for every business.
Taking advantage of the latest solutions on the market in today’s world will prove essential for maintaining a competitive edge and achieving profitable growth. We hope this series has been useful to you in your ongoing digital journey. The journey ahead will involve empowering innovation, efficiency, and connectivity; by making a smooth transition sooner rather than later, you’ll be taking another empowering step towards a prosperous future for your business.
4TC can support you with all the services you need to run your business effectively, from email and domain hosting to fully managing your whole IT infrastructure. Setting up a great IT infrastructure is just the first step. Keeping it up to date, safe and performing at its peak requires consistent attention.
We can act as either your IT department or to supplement an existing IT department. We pride ourselves in developing long term relationships that add value to your business with high quality managed support, expert strategic advice, and professional project management. Get assistance with your IT challenges today by getting in touch, we’ll be glad to assist you!
At its inception in the 1980s, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Framework) was a game-changer in the telephony industry. It enabled simultaneous voice and data transmission over digital lines, which is still a key function of telephony today, but since then, ISDN has become increasingly obsolete. In the UK, the ISDN and PSTN networks will be switched off entirely. Are you ready for the switch?
Today, there are a range of more valuable and cost-efficient alternatives in the market. In this piece, we outline the reasons why your business should replace its ISDN telephony with modern cloud-based alternatives such as VoIP, focusing on the particular example of the Microsoft Teams Phone System.
When ISDN was introduced, it revolutionised business communication by offering faster, more reliable connections compared to traditional analogue telephony systems. It brought digital clarity to voice calls and provided data transfer capabilities that were essential for the usage of the internet in its early days. ISDN allowed businesses to access both voice and data services simultaneously, a groundbreaking concept at the time. However, as technology continued to advance, the limitations of ISDN became increasingly evident.
While ISDN served businesses well in its prime, the disadvantages of continuing to rely on it for telephony have become increasingly pronounced:
The path forward is clear: replace your ISDN telephony with modern alternatives that align with the demands of the digital age. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony is one such solution, with a particular example being the Microsoft’s Teams Phone System.
VoIP solutions enable telephony to be conducted via an internet connection. A VoIP solution is accessible and manageable via an app; it is seamless to add new users, phone lines, and call packages onto a VoIP solution. Not only this, but also VoIP can work on any internet-connected smart device that can download the VoIP solution provider’s app!
The benefits of VoIP are vast, and they contrast with the disadvantages of ISDN. VoIP telephony can be scaled at the push of a button, it’s remote-work friendly, and it’s a great solution in an application-driven world. VoIP can integrate with other applications such as CRM systems and often has intelligent features such as voicemail to email, as well as call forwarding capabilities. It is also more cost-effective and flexible; with monthly pricing options, minimal hardware investment costs, and it releases the need to support it with physical infrastructure, barring an internet router.
For those leveraging the Microsoft 365 platform, the Teams Phone System is often an ideal choice! Like VoIP, it enables staff to make national and international calls over an internet connection, from most smart devices. It’s highly reliable and offers robust connectivity, while bringing the capabilities of an enterprise-grade phone system into a cloud-based and popular platform, Microsoft 365.
The integration with Microsoft 365 enables a truly unified communication solution that brings calling, chats, emails, meeting and calendar management under the roof of one platform. It’s possible to easily add users, numbers and to select call plans, making for an easy to manage and seamless telephony experience for businesses.
The world is becoming more innovative and connected. While ISDN has served a valuable purpose in offering a foundation for modern telephony and connectivity, there are now superior solutions on the market that can equip businesses with the cost-effective tools that they need to conduct calling seamlessly and efficiently.
In our next piece, we will discuss the practicalities of making a transition from ISDN telephony to more modern alternatives. With modern internet connectivity becoming increasingly available in wired and wireless forms, it has never been a better time to make the change to a modern telephony solution.
4TC can support you with all the services you need to run your business effectively, from email and domain hosting to fully managing your whole IT infrastructure. Setting up a great IT infrastructure is just the first step. Keeping it up to date, safe and performing at its peak requires consistent attention.
We can act as either your IT department or to supplement an existing IT department. We pride ourselves in developing long term relationships that add value to your business with high quality managed support, expert strategic advice, and professional project management. Get assistance with your IT challenges today by getting in touch, we’ll be glad to assist you!
Google is showing off a system that can hide a watermark in AI-generated images without changing how the pictures look.
The company’s “SynthID” system can embed digital watermarks in AI images that are “imperceptible to the human eye, but detectable for identification,” Google’s DeepMind lab says.
Google isn’t disclosing how SynthID creates these imperceptible watermarks, likely to avoid tipping off bad actors. For now, DeepMind merely says the watermark is “embedded in the pixels of an image,” which suggests the company is adding a small, minute pattern alongside the pixels that won’t disturb the overall look.
The company creates the watermarks using two deep learning models that are trained to improve the system’s imperceptibility while still correctly identifying the digital watermarks.
DeepMind added: “We designed SynthID so it doesn’t compromise image quality, and allows the watermark to remain detectable, even after modifications like adding filters, changing colors, and saving with various lossy compression schemes—most commonly used for JPEGs.” The watermark can also remain in the image even if it’s cropped.
The company added: “SynthID isn’t foolproof against extreme image manipulations, but it does provide a promising technical approach for empowering people and organizations to work with AI-generated content responsibly.”
Google is launching SynthID as a beta for select customers of Imagen, the company’s text-to-image generator available on the Vertex AI platform. The system can both add the watermark to an image and also identify pictures that carry the digital stamp.
Google says it could expand the system to other AI models, including its own products. The tech giant also hopes to make SynthID available to third-party developers in the near future. In the meantime, other companies including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon have also committed to developing ways to watermark AI-generated content.
Source: Google Creates ‘Imperceptible’ Watermark for AI-Generated Images | PCMag
Chatter about artificial intelligence mostly falls into three basic categories: anxious uncertainty (will it take our jobs?); existential dread (will it kill us all?); and simple pragmatism (can AI write my lesson plan?). In this hazy, liminal, pre-disruption moment, there is little consensus as to whether generative AI is a tool or a threat, and few rules for using it properly. For students, this uncertainty feels especially profound. Bans on AI and claims that using it constitutes cheating are now giving way to concerns that AI use is inevitable and probably should be taught in school. Now, as a new college admissions season kicks into gear, many prospective applicants are wondering: can AI write my personal essay? Should it?
Ever since the company OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November, students have been testing the limits of chatbots – generative AI tools powered by language-based algorithms – which can complete essay assignments within minutes. The results tend to be grammatically impeccable but intellectually bland, rife with cliche and misinformation. Yet teachers and school administrators still struggle to separate the more authentic wheat from the automated chaff. Some institutions are investing in AI detection tools, but these are proving spotty at best. In recent tests, popular AI text detectors wrongly flagged articles by non-native English speakers, and some suggested that AI wrote the US constitution. In July OpenAI quietly pulled AI Classifier, its experimental AI detection tool, citing “its low rate of accuracy”.
Preventing students from using generative AI in their application essays seems like shoving a genie back in a bottle, but few colleges have offered guidance for how students can use AI ethically. This is partly because academic institutions are still reeling from the recent US supreme court ruling on affirmative action, which struck down a policy that had allowed colleges to consider an applicant’s race in order to increase campus diversity and broaden access to educational opportunity. But it is also because people are generally confused about what generative AI can do and whom it serves. As with any technological innovation in education, the question with AI is not merely whether students will use it unscrupulously. It is also whether AI widens access to real help or simply reinforces the privileges of the lucky few.
These questions feel especially urgent now that many selective colleges are giving more weight to admissions essays, which offer a chance for students to set themselves apart from the similarly ambitious, high-scoring hordes. The supreme court’s ruling further bolstered the value of these essays by allowing applicants to use them to discuss their race. As more colleges offer test-optional or test-free admissions, essays are growing more important.
In the absence of advice on AI from national bodies for college admissions officers and counselors, a handful of institutions have entered the void. Last month the University of Michigan Law School announced a ban on using AI tools in its application, while Arizona State University Law School said it would allow students to use AI as long as they disclose it. Georgia Tech is rare in offering AI guidance to undergraduate applicants, stating explicitly that tools like ChatGPT can be used “to brainstorm, edit, and refine your ideas”, but “your ultimate submission should be your own”.
According to Rick Clark, Georgia Tech’s assistant vice-provost and executive director of undergraduate admission, AI has the potential to “democratize” the admissions process by allowing the kind of back-and-forth drafting process that some students get from attentive parents, expensive tutors or college counselors at small, elite schools. “Here in the state of Georgia the average counselor-to-student ratio is 300 to one, so a lot of people aren’t getting much assistance,” he told me. “This is a real opportunity for students.”
Likening AI bans to early concerns that calculators would somehow ruin math, Clark said he hopes Georgia Tech’s approach will “dispel some misplaced paranoia” about generative AI and point a way forward. “What we’re trying to do is say, here’s how you appropriately use these tools, which offer a great way for students to get started, for getting them past the blank page.” He clarified that simply copying and pasting AI-generated text serves no one because the results tend to be flat. Yet with enough tweaks and revisions, he said, collaborating with AI can be “one of the few resources some of these students have, and in that regard it’s absolutely positive”.
We should tell students that people with privileged access to college hire fancy tutors to gain every advantage possible, so here are tools to help you advocate for yourselves
Jeremy Douglas of UC Santa Barbara
Although plenty of students and educators remain squeamish about allowing AI into the drafting process, it seems reasonable to hope that these tools could help improve the essays of those who can’t afford outside assistance. Most AI tools are relatively cheap or free, so nearly anyone with a device and an internet connection can use them. Chatbots can suggest topics, offer outlines and rephrase statements. They can also help organize thoughts into paragraphs, which is something most teenagers struggle to do on their own.
“I think some people think the personal application essay shouldn’t be gamed in this way, but the system was already a game,” Jeremy Douglas, an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said. “We shouldn’t be telling students, ‘You’re too smart and ethical for that so don’t use it.’ Instead we should tell them that people with privileged access to college hire fancy tutors to gain every advantage possible, so here are tools to help you advocate for yourselves.”
In my conversations with various professors, admissions officers and college prep tutors, most agreed that tools like ChatGPT are capable of writing good admissions essays, not great ones, as the results lack the kind of color and specificity that can make these pieces shine. Some apps aim to parrot a user’s distinctive style, but students still need to rework what AI generates to get these essays right. This is where the question of whether AI will truly help underserved students becomes more interesting. In theory, AI-generated language tools should widen access to essay guidance, grammar checks and feedback. In practice, the students who might be best served by these tools are often not learning how to use them effectively.
The country’s largest school districts, New York City public schools and the Los Angeles unified school district, initially banned the use of generative AI on school networks and devices, which ensured that only students who had access to devices and the internet at home could take advantage of these tools. Both districts have since announced they are rethinking these bans, but this is not quite the same as helping students understand how best to use ChatGPT. “When students are not given this guidance, there’s a higher risk of them resorting to plagiarism and misusing the tool,” Zachary Cohen, an education consultant and middle school director at the Francis Parker School of Louisville, Kentucky, said. While his school joins some others in the private sector in teaching students how to harness AI to brainstorm ideas, iterate essays and also how to sniff out inaccurate dreck, few public schools have a technology officer on hand to navigate these new and choppy waters. “In this way, we’re setting up marginalized students to fail and wealthier students to succeed.”
Writing is hard. Even trained professionals struggle to translate thoughts and feelings into words on a page. Personal essays are especially hard, particularly when there is so much riding on finding that perfect balance between humility and bravado, vulnerability and restraint. Recent studies confirming the very real lifetime value of a degree from a fancy college merely validate concerns about getting these essays right. “I will sit with students and ask questions they don’t know to ask themselves, about who they are and why something happened and then what happened next,” said Irena Smith, a former Stanford admissions officer who now works as a college admissions consultant in Palo Alto. “Not everyone can afford someone who does that.” When some students get their personal statements sculpted by handsomely paid English PhDs, it seems unfair to accuse those who use AI as simply “outsourcing” the hard work.
Smith admits to some ambivalence about the service she provides, but doesn’t yet view tools like ChatGPT as serious rivals. Although she suspects the benefits of AI will redound to those who have been taught “what to ask and how to ask it”, she said she hopes this new technology will help all students. “People like me are symptoms of a really broken system,” she said. “So if ChatGPT does write me out of a job, or if colleges change their admissions practices because it becomes impossible to distinguish between a ChatGPT essay and a real student essay, then so much the better.”
Source: ‘A real opportunity’: how ChatGPT could help college applicants | Higher education | The Guardian
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