Innovation is the introduction of something new or improved that creates value for customers or a company. It’s usually the result of iterative improvements that build on existing ideas or technologies.

Disruption is a radical change that upends the status quo, often making current business practices irrelevant. That’s what many of us believe is happening right now with the latest AI (artificial intelligence) tools.

Most business people have at least heard of ChatGPT, a deep-learning AI tool launched late last year. Yet, many are not fully aware of its current capabilities, much less what it and others like it will be able to accomplish later this year.

If you aren’t familiar with AI, it is the science of making machines smarter. Deep learning is the 2022 breakthrough that ChatGPT brought to the forefront. What’s exciting is that we are still in the early stages of deep learning.

ChatGPT’s human-like qualities are the result of its deep learning capabilities. By progressively learning in layers with new data, these computer models can accurately predict and respond to behavior as a human would.

If you have used a business chat service, you have some experience with its ability to access and deliver seemingly human responses to your inquiries. Some are more accurate, but the system improves with greater experience.

Update your systems to integrate AI

To give you an idea of how this may work for your business, I asked ChatGPT this question:

Create a list of 10 concerns a homeowner might express when considering hiring a landscape contractor to upgrade their outdoor environment – make it emotional and use the first person. Also, think like the marketing manager of the landscape contractor above and provide an answer to each question.

This is one of the more insightful responses.

“I don’t want to deal with the hassle of permits and approvals.”

Answer: We [landscape contractor] will handle all necessary permits and approvals for your project, so you don’t have to. We have extensive experience working with local governments and can streamline the process to ensure a smooth and efficient approval process.

The smarter your company is about its current systems, the more readily it will access and use these applications. As the example shows, you can use ChatGPT now to make your current systems smarter by asking intelligent questions.

What now?

What happens next will depend on your perspective. Naysayers love to point out the shortcomings of these platforms. I am personally more aligned with those experts who suggest that 80 percent of what we do now will be automated in the next three years or less.

We’re talking about any predictive, data-driven and repetitive system. This will include customer behavior, employee interactions, production practices and so much more.

Every day people get smarter. The same is true for AI-based services, with the difference being AI systems can process millions of layers of data while you and I are still noodling on the same problem. How businesses apply that computing power is what this AI revolution is all about.

Smarter will be defined in many ways, but you can be sure that personalization will be one of them. In fact, Amazon is a leader in AI services, and one of the machine learning services it licenses to other companies is appropriately named Amazon Personalize.

You can learn more about AI and deep learning in my April Marketing Mojo column in Landscape Management magazine.