By Jeff Bell
What are the possibilities for Artificial Intelligence in SMEs?
Where can we get the right advice?
How and by when do we need to get on board?
These were some of the questions put to Josh Horneman, of Co-Founder of AI platform Howll, when he led a conversation for Band of Leaders Australia (BOLA) members and guests entitled Powering SMEs with AI at the group’s monthly meeting on Thursday 3 July at Casa Nostra in Osborne Park.
Image (l-r): Alan Pietrzak, Amanda Sachse, Josh Horneman, Olan Healy, Mal Baker.
Howll works alongside an enterprise team to automate routine tasks, enhance productivity, and protect intellectual property and data.
BOLA is a peer membership group for business owners and chief executives. We seek to take our members beyond achievement to success—the essence of leadership. Inviting Guest Conversations is a key activity in our day-long group meeting.
Josh said that AI is still in its early stages and platforms such as ChatGPT and CoPilot have the capacity to access and process huge amounts of general knowledge, but are still a way off making business decisions like a human.
Large Language Models (LLM) are at the core of what we know as AI. We can own the data and privacy of an LLM within our own business using a Local Deployment Model—providing high speed access and aggregation of our own data without the compromise of letting IP or private information leak into the marketplace.
Josh is a strong advocate for the Local Model, saying that humans should always be in the loop and in control of AI, using our own knowledge bases to educate the tools.
He said the possibilities for SMEs were boundless, but the choices around access and control need to be made. He is very optimistic for the technology, if it is used to amplify human intelligence, rather than to take its place. A lot of tedious work can be done, freeing people up for me creative and productive work.
Josh said that the time to act on AI is now, but not to rush into a project, planning for a couple of years for full implementation in a business. An SME should find internal process champions to truly leverage AI, starting with fully documented processes, then evolving a system that the business can control.
As leaders, he said, we can ask: how is it already being used in the business;empowering the process experts to use the tools within our own boundaries e.g. sales and marketing; keeping people in control of how it is used; diving into the tools with awareness and adapting them to our own purposes.
Josh said that anyone can use open-source technology to build their own AI system. He recommended having layers of controls; applying “buyer beware” to training courses; and seeking to amplify the capacity of your experts. We should remain curious (about all things), encourage it in everyone, think critically and seek to verify truth.
Privacy is a very big risk and required its own strategy.
In conclusion, Josh said that the broader public are starting to trust this super intelligence “way too much”; children especially should not use it without adult knowledge and supervision.
“Despite this, we are at a time where we can greatly amplify our intelligence, accelerating our ability to create and drive significant growth,” he said. “I am very optimistic about the future.”
BOLA members will next meet on Thursday 7 August, again at Casa Nostra. We will also be inviting guests and referrers to a Guest Conversation, led by Ryan Carpenter of Drytech, followed by a working lunch.
Throughout the remainder of the day, our agenda includes the processing of strategic opportunities raised within the group, wide ranging business issues, as well as leadership development tools and activities.
In the meantime, each BOLA Prime member will have a monthly coaching session with their BOLA Chair, Jeff Bell.