Artificial intelligence in your SME: worth the investment?
April 2023 – You couldn't open a newspaper or news site in the past few months without finding an article about ChatGPT, the chatbot running on artificial intelligence. But what exactly is the technology worth in the Belgian SME world?
Artificial intelligence has been presented for years as the holy grail within the tech world. The technology would not only change the way we work but also the way we live. And although AI has been used in all kinds of applications (from accounting to 3D printing) for over a decade, the general public was only introduced to the technology in late 2022, when OpenAI launched its famous chatbot ChatGPT.
Potentially disruptive technology
And that application does make one gasp - especially among teachers, journalists and professional copywriters - because the chatbot shows what the technology is capable of. If you ignore the current teething problems, you have to conclude that this is a particularly powerful development. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are getting nervous about the high cost of the technology. And so the question arises: is AI worth investing in as a Belgian SME?
Digitising can be done step by step
The answer is unequivocal: yes. With an important caveat that AI does not have to be expensive, complex or disruptive. The technology can be implemented step by step - in fact, most companies have been digitising their processes step by step for years. The problem they face today is their data. Many companies collect data from all kinds of digital sources but fail to structure it so that it can be fed to AI models. So there is still a lot of catching up to do in that area.
