A tech trend forecaster and futurist will lend an inside look this spring into the opportunities AI presents for family businesses.

Sean Watson serves as senior vice president of special projects at Trend Hunter, a firm based in Toronto, Canada, that works with some of the world’s largest brands on custom research, AI tools, training and advisory services.

Watson will speak in Sioux Falls at Prairie Family Business Association’s annual conference, which runs April 30-May 1. His presentation, “How AI Is Shaping the Future of Humanity’s Tech Landscape,” will cover how the transformative power of AI has set the world on a new path.

We sat down with Watson for a preview of what to expect.

To frame up the conversation, when you talk about artificial intelligence in the context of your keynote, what exactly do you mean?

Specifically regarding this keynote, when I’m speaking about AI, I’m speaking about generative AI. You can think about AI as a system mimicking human intelligence: chat bots answering human questions, machine learning, spam filters. And then you have deep learning like image recognition systems spotting faces and photos. And then we have generative AI. When I put in an input, it generates something — ChatGPT generating essays or DALL-E generating pictures, which is what we’re seeing the advancement rapidly.

Put simply, family businesses – at least in this part of the country – largely have a lot to tackle when it comes to the implications of AI. A recent Prairie Family Business Association survey found 13 percent of firms have implemented AI into their business practices, and only 18 percent of companies feel they have the necessary skills to do so. In your work, how do you feel like this compares to numbers nationally?

It’s interesting, I find for a lot of small-to-medium businesses, they are slow to adopt, but we’re seeing that at an enterprise level too. Regulations and security are things they’re worried about, and there are a lot of moving parts that make them move slower. Family businesses and entrepreneurs and medium-sized businesses have a great opportunity, but some of it is fear holding them back — whether it’s founded or unfounded.

In that same survey, when family businesses were asked whether AI can provide a higher return on investment, 58 percent indicated “neither agree nor disagree.” How would you describe the possibilities for AI to create a positive ROI in business?

I think so far, study after study shows the ROI is almost immediate when you implement AI effectively. We did an AI workshop with a large oil and gas company, and within an hour or two, they’d figured out how to automate a piece of manual work to save $60 million a year. For small and medium businesses, we’re seeing gains in creativity and productivity. A study of management consultants found they are completing tasks 25 percent faster with AI, they’re completing more than 10 percent more tasks, and the quality of the work is up almost 40 percent. So we’re raising the bar, and we’re seeing that across industry.

Are there particular industries you think will be affected first or most profoundly by the evolution of AI?

I think that marketing and advertising, media and entertainment, technology, of course. Health care, finance, legal, I think they’re all going to be affected relatively quickly. AI right now is the worst it’s ever going to be. It’s getting better faster and faster. Education is going to change with personalized training. You’ll have a companion with you that experiences the education system with you and understands what you’re having trouble with better than standardized testing. Health care is poised for a revolution in personalized medicine. AI is proposed to save 250,000 lives a year. In many ways, there’s this large overarching idea that it’s going to completely replace people, and I don’t think that’s the case. We always say this when new technology comes alone.

For a family business that recognizes AI likely has a role to play but doesn’t know where to begin to address it, what would you suggest?

The best thing about AI is it’s free to dive into, and it’s actually fun as well. One of my favorite things to do is tell people to play with ChatGPT, especially if you have some downtime. Go into your pantry, write down the ingredients you have, throw it into ChatGPT and ask it to come up with recipes. If you’re going traveling, ask for tips of what to go see. Instead of going to Google, go to ChatGPT, and do a search.

From there, I encourage people to automate your hate. Find ways for AI to help you do the things you hate doing. Even if it only saves you 10 minutes in a day, that’s significant at the end of the year.

As a futurist and trend analyst, what other themes are you seeing emerge in the business world that family businesses should be aware of?

One of the overarching ideas I think family businesses have the opportunity to do is innovate and fail fast and cheap. This idea of innovating and the instant entrepreneur will affect family businesses the largest. You have to differentiate from the crowd. Before, we went back and forth for market share, and now we’re going for attention. AI has given us a new way to build strategy, and with the way the world is shrinking, it gives us more reach to differentiate our businesses. The playing field being leveled is incredibly important. You’re going to see a lot of small businesses poking through the noise.

What takeaways can attendees at the PFBA conference expect from your presentation?

I think definitely for them to have their eyes opened in a new ways to tech and AI. You’ll understand this isn’t some crazy tech boom and you have ways to take advantage of it. There’s something for everyone, and it’s accessible. It will not cost anything to see some gains, some ROI, and you maybe will get a little scared about what’s coming down the pipeline. We’ll talk about some things happening on the fringe. What you’re doing now might be replaced by something else, but you’re not going to be replaced by a computer. You’re going to be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI.

For a full conference agenda and to register, click here.