S2. Ep22 - How We Decide What AI to Actually Use in Our Business

Speaker A: Welcome to the AI Automations for Business podcast. We're your hosts Katie and Noel and we'll be discussing how you can use AI for your business along with the latest news, updates and automations to help you stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to grow and scale your business more efficiently. Please be sure to subscribe and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello, welcome back to another episode. Hi. Hello, I'm Katie and as always I've got Noel here with me. Hi Noel, how are you doing?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm doing great this week. How are you doing?

Speaker A: Yeah, all good, thank you. We have been away, uh, Noel and I were away last week in Norway. Uh, we went from the rain in the UK to the rain in Norway.

Speaker B: Least it was cooler than the week before.

Speaker A: Yeah and we had the obviously the beautiful scenery of the Norwegian fjords.

Speaker B: M. Brilliant. Loved it. Yeah, loved it.

Speaker A: We have some updates this week or just one update I believe.

Speaker B: Yeah, so there was one little update that came out yesterday. I'm sure Apple would see it. It's not a very little update but whatever. But what they're doing is they're finally upgrading Siri AI which is quite exciting to see. So they, they actually, I didn't realize or I'd forgotten they actually got sued in 2024 uh because they miss sold the Apple intelligence. So people went out and bought all these new iPhones and what have you and then were just like this is just rubbish. So basically owed every single user or something. But anyway, uh, so to rectify that they've gone off. They've had multiple years to think about it and they've decided not to bother with their own AI agents. Ish. They're going to use Gemini instead. Uh, so yeah, it's going to be really awesome to see when it comes out. But it has like a little pop down widget. So as you're talking to it and say oh could you find me this email? Your widget by your camera notch pops down and it will be like a button to go oh yeah, I found it. Here it is with a link and you can click the link and then off you go in your emails and all that sort of great stuff and you know there's maps built into it, you know. Yeah, all very, very clever.

Speaker A: Uh, do you know when that's being released?

Speaker B: Uh, so that should be with the next iOS Mac OS release. Uh, whenever that will be. Who knows? Uh, it's usually around September isn't it? I think it's going to be for the big, the next big jump oh, right, okay.

Speaker A: Yeah. September then, isn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it should be around then. Uh, so, yeah, that'll be exciting to see. However, on iPhone, you'll only be able to use it on 17 Pro and anything that then comes 18 after. So. Yeah, you can't use. I can't use it myself, unfortunately.

Speaker A: I can't use it either.

Speaker B: No, but you'll be able to use it on the Mac. You could use it on there.

Speaker A: But that is just another way I feel that Apple are, uh, trying to get people to buy new devices.

Speaker B: It is, but I guess that was kind of what they were sued for in 2024. So it's a bit of a risky, risky gamble again.

Speaker A: But I feel like Apple do it because, you know, when your device gets to a particular age, you then can't update it anymore or the battery goes on it, which, yeah, isn't great.

Speaker B: No, no, no. But as it's backed by Gemini models, it should be far, far better than Apple Intelligence. Fingers crossed. Okay. Yeah, can't wait to see that come out. Not that I'm going to buy a new phone.

Speaker A: No,

Speaker B: uh, definitely not.

Speaker A: Okay, so usually on this podcast we are teaching you something, maybe, um, telling you about new software that's come out. Um, after, you know, the, the part of the podcast where we've told you the updates and news, we then go into the main part and it's usually telling you about something. But the amount of questions that we receive are always about how we use AI and how we use different platforms, different software, how we decide what AI to use, um, and all of those interesting things. So we thought we would dedicate this podcast episode to kind of giving you an insight about how both of us decide what AI to use, what software to use, and platforms and things like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, switch it around.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, okay. No, let's jump into it. So I'll let you, uh, um, start us off.

Speaker B: So I guess to start off with, we'll talk about how we figure out what software we're going to use, because as you know, if you followed anything in the AI space, there's so much news, there's so much hype, there's so much stuff get thrown at you. And I guess as a business owner, it's kind of hard to figure out, well, you know, what actually do I need? What are these features that are going to be helpful and useful to me and my business? And we have the same approach, so everything that comes out, we either just look at it and go, well, what does this mean? Is it going to help us in any way, shape or form? Is this going to be something that's going to cost us money and actually not do anything helpful, which is not ideal? Um, so the way I always look at these sort, uh, of things is, you know, is it going to have that tangible benefit? Am I going to use this on a daily basis? Is this just going to be something that I'm going to use once and then forget about it? So if it runs into that, I'm going to use it once and forget about it, then at that point, I don't even bother. I just park it. I might watch some on YouTube about it. You know, just have a, like a general idea of what's going on and then just forget about it, put it to one side. Um, but the thing that I find really important is kind of the first big step, the first big thing you need to worry about, I guess, is which AI platform, as a business owner, are you going to get into first? So there's three main players. So you've got your ChatGPT, you've got your Claude, and you've got your Gemini. So everyone's going to have all of their opinions on which one's best for them, uh, whether that be, you know, response style or, you know, price, whatever features, all that good stuff. You know, that you could already be tied into a Google account already, so you're probably already half paying for these AI features. So it makes sense to stay with Gemini, which is fair enough. You know, every business is different, but, um. But I think for us, where we started off as ChatGPT, didn't we, ages ago when it first came out? Yeah, uh, we made the decision, uh, was it about six months ago? Now we're just like, that's it, we're gonna, we're gonna cut ties and we're gonna move on. We're gonna say goodbye to ChatGPT. We'd had enough and, yeah, we decided to shift all of our business processes into Claude, mainly because, you know, we like the platform, we like the responses, we like the reliability and really kind of the trajectory that the business was going in and still is today. So, yeah, it's getting that piece, I think for most businesses is probably the most important. So, uh, if you've got teams of people and things that you might manage, then you've also got to factor those guys in as well, because most of those might be in one camp and not another. And it's saying, well, is it then a pain to then train them, uh, to use a Different platform or whatever. But you know, I would say first step, get that bit solved, uh, or you know, in place. Um, and. Yeah, and then from there we can then branch out.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would say so. I've worked on teams like as a contractor and the uh, main mistake that people make when choosing the right system or software is m just looking at the price alone and not actually really considering the usability. So whether that it flows nicely, it's easy to understand, it's easy to pick up. Um, is this actually as well going to do the job that you want it to do? Whereas I think so many people are just focused. Well, this is actually within my budget so I'm going to make it work. But then you spend a lot of hours, you know, fighting against it or like feeling frustrated from it because actually it doesn't quite do what you want it to do or it's maybe like a little bit clunky or things like that. And most of uh, you know, these softwares or systems do have a free trial that you can check out. And if you are planning on, you know, getting your team, if you have a team to use it as well, then maybe get, you know, them to test it out. I mean if you've got a huge team then you know, you might just ask a few of them. Um, but you kind of want to make sure that it does exactly what you want it to do and the usability is there because I think you mentioned this, um, just 9 null about getting sucked into the hype.

Speaker B: Yeah, dangerous.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you know, these softwares and systems, they're marketing you and they want you to kind of like see their ad or you know, see other people talking about it, which they're probably affiliates. Um, so they, they want you to have that hype, that FOMO fear of missing out that you know, you have to buy this. Like you cannot run your business without it. But actually sometimes just taking a beat, taking some time, um, and you know, if there is a time limit on it, usually you can like message the, the person who's advertising it or the company that are advertising it and they usually, you know, will let you in, uh, the price that you saw advertise. So I always think don't get, yeah, try not to get caught up in that uh, hype, that excitement and just take a beat and actually go right, what, what does this software or system platform actually do? And is this what I need it to do for my business? And I think this leads us nicely, Noel, into something that you've experienced before. When you've gone to look at like a platform or software or system and it's got a long list of things that it can do, but actually you just want it to do like three or four things. Um, so rather than paying, you know, the premium monthly cost for all of these features that actually you're only going to use, three or four of, you've actually decided, well, actually, I'm going to build this myself.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I did this, this must have been last month now. Um, but I wanted to do some like, keyword research and stuff that, uh, that was, uh, what I wanted to do. I wanted to, you know, see what demand was for certain keywords and what have you. Um, and if you Google any sort of platforms that do that, so you've got like, yeah, href Semrush and all those sort of stuff, you know, they cost a lot of money. You know, starting. Starting price of like a hundred dollars, say, uh, going upwards quite steeply from there. So I was like, oof, you know, I don't, I don't need all of that information. So what I did is I went off and I dug around and I was like, right, I'm going to find what they're getting this data from somewhere. You know, it's got to, they've got to have mined it from somewhere. So I found a platform, uh, where it was like, you could try it for free, uh, to start off with, we'll give you the data. And I was like, perfect. Plugged it into Claude code, said, look, this is what I want to happen. This is the app I want to build. It was like, sure, I can do that with that API. And off it went. And he just built it. So it works really, really well. So, uh, at the minute I can put in like keywords, uh, and it will give me like loads of search results. It'll even look at alternate keyword and things like that and, you know, kind of score everything, uh, which is perfect for what I needed. Uh, but yeah, I did all of that for. Well, I think each run cost me about 6 cents maximum.

Speaker A: And can you remember how much the other Apple platform was going to cost you?

Speaker B: Uh, so I think the base price was $100 a month.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So I was like, yeah, that's just, that's just way, way too much. I think with SEO tools, they've just gone parabolic in price. So yeah, it's just really crazy, crazy money. So I was like, you know, so, yeah, I'm saving a lot of money because I don't really need to do that many searches for. I do. You know, it's just. I just wanted something quick and easy. Jump in, do a quick search. Yep, brilliant. I can either pass it into Claude or whatever, uh, to do some detailed analysis or see it for myself and go off and do something with it, you know. Uh, and yeah, I just do like a couple of searches a month, so it's only costing me. Well, it's not even 50 cents for what I need it for. Um, but yeah, that platform did say, well, now you've used all your free credit, so you got to chuck in $50, so we'll use that as your ongoing credit. And I was like, well, sure, you know, I'm not going to get through that in a hurry. So. So why not? You know, it's still cheaper than one month subscription to something which had all the bells and whistles, which I wasn't particularly interested in. So. Yeah, so, yeah, it is really possible these days to just go off and build those sort of apps. Um, you know, obviously you've got to be careful with like, uh, security and stuff, like for businesses and what have you. You do need to be mindful of that and who has access to what and, you know, all that sort of good stuff. But if, you know, I wouldn't be scared of doing it. That's, that's kind of like some people I meet, are they just like, well, I can see it's going to be good that I could do this thing, but I'm worried about doing it. But if you're just running it locally on your laptop to start or your PC, who cares if it doesn't work, you know, just give it a go. You know, you can use Claude code, uh, or, you know, whichever Codex or Gemini Cli or whatever they've got these days and, uh, you know, just go off and, you know, give it a go, see what you can come up with. It might look terrible. It usually does the first time, but, you know, you can always ask Claude to make it look nicer and stuff like that and give it some brand guidelines and it make it look like, you know, it's something that your business has built, you know. Yeah. And uh, yeah, it's really quite straightforward to do these days. Um, yeah, I think we're, we're quite spoiled in the coding world at the minute, so compared to what we used to.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I think really the key thing here is like shop around and see what else you can find.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If it is, you know, um, the platform or the app software, etc is at a, ah, premium rate and you're not using all of the features but saying that you and I don't use all the features within Claude and we both pay a monthly fee for Claude because I know you got asked ah, the other day how to use Claude. Was it Claude dispatch?

Speaker B: Yes, yeah, I did. Yeah. I got asked that yesterday and I was like as I've forgotten it was even there. You know, I, I tried it when it first came out just to give it a go. But yeah, it's just. Yeah, uh, I would say you don't have to use everything. I don't use everything. Uh, I wouldn't suggest anybody does a deep dive and uses absolutely everything. I would just use what you need to use later on down the line. I might really love this batch. I don't know. In six months time it could be the best thing ever. That's something that I wish I'd started today. But right now I, you know, I can get on, I can do what I need to do without it. So I just, you know, park it, uh, and then, you know, it's still there. You know, it's not going to go where, go anywhere. Uh, I can still use it whenever I wish. I just, yeah, just don't have to. Which is uh. Yeah. Which is always important.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so as well. I mean I don't use a lot of the features within Claude, but I find the, the things that I do use within Claude worth my monthly fee. And I think, I think that's important, isn't it? It's just kind of like, am I actually using this enough to warrant the monthly fee? Rather than thinking I've got to use all of it to uh, like squeeze every last ounce of goodness for my money out of it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because even though I don't use the features and I think McClaud is slightly different compared to the other two mainly because they're really strict on usage limits. So obviously the more you pay, the more usage you get per uh, whatever, per hour, per week, however they work out. So I went straight up onto one of the bigger plans just to get extra usage because I knew I was going to use Claude code using that usage, uh, limits. M. So I was like, I'm just going to get as much use as this as I can and I hammer that usage every single day. Uh, so yeah, that's kind of important to uh, figure that out and just

Speaker A: going back to like the, the hype and you know, things we see on the Internet, maybe it's other Creators, um, telling us that we need this in our business, or other business owners telling us how they've made like $20 million by using this. I think at that point it's really remembering actually thinking about how do you, how do you run your business, how do you um, you know, sell your office, what offers do you want to sell, like, and how do you want your business to look and feel? Because I think that's really important as well. Because if there's like a content creator or a business owner who's been in business like over 10 years and maybe you're, you know, maybe in your first year, how they run their business is going to be completely different to how you run your business as uh, you know, someone who's just starting out. And I think it's really important as well. Like sometimes it's kind of like we try and like maybe grow too quickly or we try and like have all the bells, all the whistles, um, too quickly. And like I feel like sometimes we can waste money or waste time by doing that. And actually yes, if you've got lots of people like completing your online form to want to work with you on a one to one basis and you know, you need that automation in place and then great, but if actually you've only got a couple of people a month, then actually do you really need an automation costing you X amount of money per month? The answer is probably no. So I think it's, it's remembering that as well. And I've seen so many things on what in particular Instagram, where people are promoting like this automation made my business 20 million. And this person in particular is probably running their business for like 12 years now. So I think it's just remember and almost like catch yourself before you think, oh my God, I've got to have that because I want to make 20 million. I get it. Like you're, you're motivated and you're passionate, which is amazing and you know, I don't want anyone to lose that. But it's kind of like before you jump in and feel like you have to buy this, I have to have this automation or you know, whatever it is, this platform or app, uh, just kind of say like, actually how is this going to fit into my business? Is this going to help me save time, it's going to help me like get more business. And there's kind of like a real like tangible um, like result or data that you can track. If you just think, oh, it's a nice to have, then just kind of think Actually do, do I need to be spending money on this or do I need to be going down a rabbit hole and setting this automation or this platform or software up? Um, because I just feel like that is what people are getting sucked into right now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And a lot of it, people don't even need. It's just, you know, people going, oh, I've made this automation and it's made me $10,000. But it's them selling like a $20 ebook to their audience of like 200,000 which isn't going to work for someone who's got an audience of 500 maybe.

Speaker B: No, the less is very big ticket and they all buy it which is unlikely.

Speaker A: So it's kind of just like thinking about those things which I, you know, I don't think a lot of people do think about. And yeah, I just would hate for people to waste money, waste time, waste their energy when actually they could be focusing on their business and running their business and creating new offers and selling those offers. Um, and actually it goes back to if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Uh, I mean it's, I kind of fell into this trap as well, especially when it came to like building automations. So I got a bit addicted to that. Um, as we all know, I'm less addicted to it these days. But um, yeah, definitely I would go off and build like really complicated like uh, booking calendar, booking systems and stuff. So yeah, it was great that if somebody came through and you know, went through that automation, it went all that down the right routes and all this amazing stuff happened. Yeah, great. But I could have just done it myself. We're not dealing with hundreds of bookings a day. It's like you know, 1, 1 or 2 a uh, month or a couple a week or whatever, you know, that's completely, you know, doable for me that I don't need, you know, so I wasted all those hours for, you know, not a great deal, amount of returns. So yeah, yeah, I'd always assess that first as well just to make sure uh, you know, you're doing something that's definitely worthwhile.

Speaker A: I think so, yeah. So just like a recap, it's just being mindful of what you are paying for, you know, are you using enough, ah, of the features or feel like you're getting your money's worth before signing up to something or do you maybe need to shop around and look to see if there's something else that's suitable? Um, but maybe with fewer features or even more features it could be, who knows? Um, yeah, just making sure that it's right for you. Not getting sucked into that hype or feel that you're missing out or that you're not going to make, uh, an extra 20 million just because you don't download this free ebook or, you know, this $30 course or something like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, if it did make that sort of money, we'd all do it, wouldn't we? We'd all be millionaires.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: Unfortunately not. Not yet.

Speaker A: Um, so that was this week's episode. We hope you enjoyed listening to how like, we assess what AI and Automations to use for our business and, and separate businesses as well. If you've got any questions or if you feel like, um, you've, um, got something that you want to say to us, want to ask us, then you can email us at, ah, helloakeAutomations, AI. Or you can join our free group over on LinkedIn which is called AI Automations to Businesses. And you are welcome to join. It's completely free. There's no upsell. You can come and tell us what you're building, what you're AI or using Automations for. If you've got questions, you can also drop them in there. Or if you've got any ideals for us, um, to talk about on the podcast, then again, just let us know. But thank you so much for listening. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and we will catch you next time for another episode very soon.