With a little curiosity and the right guidance, AI might just become your most powerful tool.

I recently sat down with Zaw Thet to discuss how AI helps grow a small business, as part of The Big Idea from Yahoo Finance. If you’re a small-business owner wondering whether AI is just a buzzword or an actual tool that can help you grow, Thet has a perspective worth hearing. As the CEO and co-founder of Exer AI, a clinical AI platform developed in collaboration with institutions including Mayo Clinic and Stanford, he sits at the crossroads of emerging technology and real-world impact.

Thet is no newcomer. At just 19, he helped pioneer SMS messaging during the dot-com era with his former company, 4Info. Now, he’s tackling a much more complex challenge—capturing human motion to help diagnose and treat disease. At a recent small-business event, I asked 100 entrepreneurs if they were using AI in their businesses. Every hand went up. But there is still a significant gap in small-business owners utilizing appropriate AI tools for the everyday management of their companies. That gap between interest and implementation is exactly what Thet is trying to close, and he shared three tips for small businesses: Consider the tools and software you are already using in your small business, like PayPal or QuickBooks. Many of these platforms integrate AI directly into their services, so ensure you are utilizing them to their fullest potential.

“We’re starting to see a lot of small businesses use AI tools to help with things like scheduling and calendaring,” Thet said. 2. Utilize ChatGPT. Use ChatGPT for prompts, whether it’s creating a social-media content calendar or mixing colors for a hair salon. Thet recommends downloading it on your phone. He also advises against inputting queries into ChatGPT as you would a search engine. Instead, provide guidance and talk to the AI like it’s human. Give it a goal and define what you want the output to look like, such as a Word document, PDF, or image. Offer reminders and warnings about what you don’t want ChatGPT to do. Tell it a little bit about your business. 3. Adopt AI to reclaim your time. The toughest commodity for small-business owners is time, and AI can help give some of that time back and even solve staffing problems.

“The benefit of AI is that when it’s used smartly, it enables these efficiencies and gives us time back,” Thet said. “I’d much rather start a task or four deep research projects on ChatGPT and then have time to work out or go outside and get some sun and Vitamin D.” With a little curiosity and the right guidance, AI might just become your most powerful tool. It is critical that small-business leaders adopt AI and make it a part of their daily business routine.

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