By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
The expanding role of artificial intelligence in modern life has been the subject of much discussion and some controversy in recent months. Therefore, it was no surprise the topic was featured on the first day of the 2024 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, which kicked off Sept. 11 in Washington, D.C.
A group of panelists, including Tracy Owens, director of U.S. public affairs at Sage; Aaron Harris, chief technology officer at Sage; Dona Franklin, owner of Turnkey Solutions; and Georgia State Sen. Jason Esteves (D-Dist. 6), discussed how small businesses can maximize the use of AI.
The conversation featured Sage, a software company that provides human resources services to small and medium businesses, and how it has incorporated AI into its business. The company is particularly aiming to use AI in ways that can serve their clients.
“With the help of AI, we can capture all business activity in real time and account for that business activity,” said Harris. “We pair continuous assurance for continuous accounting to create trust in that data. Small business leaders and owners need to move very fast to compete, and our objective is to give them technology that enables them to [do just that].”
Franklin described how she has used ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, in her business to save time on everyday tasks.
“AI has literally revolutionized our business in the past couple of years,” she said. “I looked at ChatGPT as a fun thing when I first discovered it. But what has happened over the past two years is we found that it can make mundane, everyday tasks so much easier, and it provides such tremendous productivity.”
Franklin said she has used ChatGPT to create documents based on presentation slides and develop training videos.
“An activity that might have taken me an hour and a half [to] two hours literally took 10 minutes,” she said. “If you think about the time you spend doing those things, it translates directly into money.”
With the plethora of issues Black small businesses already face such as high interest rates, AI could provide that much-needed relief.
“Just this morning, I gave a speech to an association not too far from here, and prior to finalizing that speech, I ran the text through ChatGPT,” said Esteves. “I said ‘Give me your thoughts on the speech. How long is it? How long will it take me, and do you have any recommendations on what I had?’”
“It did a lot for me in [those] 30 seconds that it took to spit out the information,” he continued. “I was able to add more to my speech.”
Though only 3.8 percent of American businesses were using AI in 2023, Owens insists that it will continue to expand rapidly and urged small business owners to take part in the conversation.
“Small businesses, medium-sized businesses are going to be in the mix for all of this,” said Owens.
He said small business owners should ensure “investments are being made” and have conversations with government officials and larger businesses about how they can best assist small business owners’ AI endeavors.
“There’s room for all of us,” said Owens.
In a related event, Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) led a discussion about ways African Americans can use AI to empower the Black community.
Butler emphasized the importance of this conversation and briefly discussed legislation she was planning to introduce.
“This is legislation that is directed towards traditionally marginalized communities,” she said.
Butler said it would set aside $250 million to invest in upskilling students, educators and employers in industries that will potentially be impacted by artificial intelligence.
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