AI in SMEs: when technology uses you (and you don’t even realize it)
Picture this: you’re there, in your 15-by-15-foot office, fighting with Word to get the damn spell checker to stop underlining your name as if it were a mistake, and bam! It turns out that you are already using Artificial Intelligence. Yes, as you read it. Your humble SME is more high-tech than you thought, if only so that your supplier’s PDF doesn’t look like hieroglyphics.
This is how Hiram Monroy, the spokesperson for AMD dropped it, in a talk where he basically told us: *”Friends, AI is already here, and no, you don’t need a Silicon Valley vest to use it”*. It turns out that everyday applications like Word, Acrobat, or even that PDF reader you installed just because Chrome forced you to, already come with built-in AI algorithms. In other words, while you thought you were just writing another boring report, you were actually flirting with the future. *Mind blown*.
From Jalisco to the metaverse (or almost)
According to Monroy, even the family businesses in Jalisco—yes, the ones where the boss keeps printing emails “just in case”—are getting on the AI train. Of course, not to create the next ChatGPT, but for practical things like summarizing documents or predicting when they are going to run out of coffee in the office (ok, not the second one, but almost).
But not everything is hunky dory. Among the obstacles are:
- Ignorance (aka *”what is this, a virus?”*).
- Security in the cloud (*”what if my sales Excel is hacked?”*).
- And the classic: *”how much does this cost?”* (spoiler: it’s not cheap).
Luckily, AMD is already in *”hold my beer”* mode with its NPUs (Neural Processing Units), which are basically chips so that your computer doesn’t crash when the AI tries to do something useful. So, in theory, you will soon be able to use AI without depending on the cloud (and without your electricity bill looking like that of a data center).
The future: AI everywhere (even in coffee)
The most ironic thing is that, although 95% of companies already use AI (according to AMD studies), many don’t even know it. It’s like when your grandmother uses WhatsApp and has no idea she’s using the internet. The difference is that, this time, whoever doesn’t find out is left behind. *And in the business world, that hurts more than a passive-aggressive comment in Teams*.
Moral: If your SME still doesn’t know how to get the most out of AI, it’s time to stop pretending that it’s *”a big company thing”* and get your act together. Because, as Monroy said: *”If you don’t inform yourself, you’re going to end up like the Nokia of 2010″*. And nobody wants that.
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