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  • Cyber Attacks Are Inevitable — So Stop Preparing For If One Happens and Start Preparing For When One Will | Entrepreneur

    Cyber Attacks Are Inevitable — So Stop Preparing For If One Happens and Start Preparing For When One Will | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In 2024, organizations faced an average of 1,308 cyber attacks per week in Q1, a 28% rise from the previous quarter and 5% year-over-year. And what’s even worrisome is that cybercrime losses reached $12.8 billion in 2023 and are expected to hit $23.84 trillion by 2027.

    Undoubtedly, securing your business in today’s digital business landscape isn’t just about protecting against cyber threats — it’s about resilience.

    You can always fall for the latest threats since cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated while sneaking into business networks. Hence, you need a more robust cybersecurity plan backed by cyber resilience that goes beyond conventional cybersecurity strategy.

    Cyber resilience isn’t a buzzword; it’s a necessity and a proactive approach that goes beyond conventional security. It ensures your organization withstands and recovers from potential threats without much impact on your business.

    In a nutshell, cyber resilience is about building walls of protection and having the resilience to bounce back stronger.

    Let’s discover why embracing resilience should be a top priority for businesses to ensure continuity and future success in the ever-expanding cybersecurity landscape.

    Related: There’s No Margin for Error in Cybersecurity — Here’s How to Build a Strong Online Defense through Everyday Habits

    Why your business needs cyber resilience

    Cyber resilience is your organization’s ability to prevent, withstand and smoothly recover from various cybersecurity incidents. Cyber resilience isn’t about preventing cyberattacks — it’s about ensuring your organization can swiftly recover and continue to operate after an incident.

    Nobody can predict the next threat to your organization and customers, especially in an era where machine learning and artificial intelligence have broadened the horizons and increased threat vectors.

    Hence, a robust incident response plan is undeniably the need of the hour for businesses that are about to reinvent their cybersecurity posture.

    Remember, a cybersecurity strategy lacking a robust incident response plan is good for nothing since cybercriminals are already exploring new ways to target end users and customers to exploit their personal information and gain access to sensitive business details.

    On the other hand, cyber resilience not only ensures stringent cybersecurity against immediate threats but eventually mitigates long-term costs. Hence, investing in cyber resilience would surely safeguard your business from financial devastation and ensure smooth continuity.

    Now that we’ve learned about cyber resilience and its importance, let’s emphasize how you can incorporate it into your business.

    Related: 3 Reasons to Increase Your Cybersecurity Protocols in 2024

    Is your organization truly protected?

    Most businesses mistake cyber resilience for cybersecurity. However, they are pretty different and hold their own importance at different levels.

    Securing your organization against modern threats is crucial, but it’s also important to prepare for the worst. For example, you must have a plan to deal with a data or privacy breach.

    If you wish to protect your organization from the latest threats, your cybersecurity must include a comprehensive cyber resilience checklist.

    Whether it is regular audits, employee training, or advanced threat detection through technology, you must always be geared up to handle any cyber incident.

    Your cybersecurity checklist to supercharge your cyber resilience

    1. Regular security audits

    Scheduled audits are crucial to uncover potential threats and vulnerabilities before cybercriminals can exploit them. Addressing the issues well in advance can help you prepare a solid plan for the worst-case scenario and bounce back stronger.

    Here’s what you can do:

    • Look for outdated software: It’s crucial to check and update your defense software and firewalls since outdated software is more susceptible to ransomware attacks and other threats.
    • Incidence response drill: Organizing an incident response drill will help identify gaps in your communication protocol and eventually help you overcome the delayed response time during a cyberattack. Hence, scheduling quarterly incident response drills is crucial once you’ve completed the security audit.
    • Engage third-party experts: Involving third-party cybersecurity experts can provide an unbiased evaluation of your security measures and help create a robust cyber resilience program. Experts can uncover vulnerabilities your internal teams might overlook and help prepare an action response plan accordingly.

    2. Strengthening your human firewall through employee training and awareness programs

    Human error leads to cybersecurity breaches. Ensuring your employees are well-trained to handle any vulnerability is critical to building cyber resilience.

    • Regular training sessions: Regular training and updating your employees on the latest threat vectors and best practices are essential. Using real-world scenarios to illustrate various threats and their corresponding responses would shield your organization from potential threats and minimize losses during an unforeseen event.
    • Phishing simulations: Implementing phishing simulations to test your employees’ ability to recognize and respond to phishing attacks is crucial for safeguarding sensitive information. Using the results to identify improvement areas will help tailor training to minimize human error.
    • Clear policies and procedures: Establishing clear cybersecurity procedures and policies within your organization is crucial to building resilience. Ensure the policies are easily accessible and understood by everyone in the organization.

    3. Building a robust incident response team is your frontline defense

    A dedicated incident response team is all you need for swift and effective action during a cybersecurity incident. This will help minimize the impact, leading to fewer financial and reputational losses.

    • Define roles and responsibilities: You must clearly define roles and responsibilities for every team member regardless of their job title and experience. It’s crucial to ensure that everyone knows their duties and responsibilities promptly during an incident and the situation.
    • Invoke the potential of modern tools and technologies: Using threat intelligence tools, data encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Zero Trust architecture can reinforce your overall cybersecurity resilience program.
    • Continuous improvement: Conducting a thorough review to identify areas for improvement after every drill and incident. This will help you continuously update your incident response plan based on the recent findings.

    Final thoughts

    In this modern digital business landscape, the increasing cyber threats and sophistication of cybercriminals demand next-level security — cyber resilience.

    Cyber resilience is a vital strategy for businesses to ensure they stay up and running even in the event of a cyber incident and can quickly contain a breach without financial and reputational losses.

    Hence, embracing cyber resilience shouldn’t be a luxury; it must be an essential pillar of your cybersecurity foundation.

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    Rakesh Soni

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  • How Nvidia Pivoted From Graphics Card Maker to AI Chip Giant | Entrepreneur

    How Nvidia Pivoted From Graphics Card Maker to AI Chip Giant | Entrepreneur

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    A decade ago, Nvidia was a major graphics card maker, vying with competitors like AMD and Intel for dominance. Now it’s an AI giant with 70% to 95% of the market share for AI chips, and the brains of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s also the best-performing stock with the highest return in the past 25 years.

    Why did Nvidia invest in AI chips over 10 years ago, ahead of the competition? CEO Jensen Huang and board member Mark Stevens, Nvidia’s two largest individual shareholders, talked to Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha to explain what Botha called “one of the most remarkable business pivots in history.”

    Nvidia’s original product was 3D graphics cards for PC games, but company leaders noticed by the mid-2000s that the PC market was hitting a growth limit.

    Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Turned Down a Merger Offer in the Company’s Early Days, According to Insiders. Here’s Why.

    “We felt we were always gonna be boxed into the PC gaming market and always knocking heads with Intel if we didn’t develop a brand new market that nobody else was in,” Stevens explained.

    Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia. Photographer: Lionel Ng/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    That need for a new market intersected with a product Nvidia already had on hand: its graphics processor unit, or GPU, which could be used to power tasks outside of gaming. Researchers at universities across the world began exploring the graphics cards, eventually building advanced computers with them.

    Related: Is It Too Late to Buy Nvidia? Former Morgan Stanley Strategist Says ‘Buy High, Sell Higher.’

    Huang recalled meeting a quantum chemist in Taiwan who showed him a closet with a “giant array” of Nvidia’s GPUs on its shelves; house fans were rotating to keep the system cool.

    “He said, ‘I built my own personal supercomputer.’ And he said to me that because of our work… he’s able to do his work in his lifetime,” Huang said.

    Other researchers, like Meta AI chief Yann LeCun in New York, began reaching out to Nvidia about the computing power of its chips. Nvidia began considering the AI market when AI had yet to enter the mainstream and was a “zero billion dollar market” or a market that had yet to materialize.

    “There was no guarantee that AI would ever really emerge because, keep in mind, AI had had many stops and starts over the last 40 years,” Stevens said. “I mean, AI has been around as a computer science concept for decades. But it had never really taken off as a huge market opportunity.”

    Related: Nvidia Is ‘Slowly Becoming the IBM of the AI Era,’ According to the Leader of a $2 Billion AI Startup

    Huang and other company leaders still believed in AI and decided to invest billions in the tech in the 2010s.

    “This was a giant pivot for our company,” Huang said. “The company’s focus was steered away from its core business.”

    Huang highlighted the extra cost, talent, and skills Nvidia had to account for with the pivot, as it affected the entire company. It took 10 to 15 years of effort, but that business decision led to Nvidia powering the AI revolution with an early ChatGPT partnership.

    “Every CEO’s job is supposed to look around corners,” Huang said. “You want to be the person who believes the company can achieve more than the company believes it can.”

    Related: How to Be a Billionaire By 25, According to a College Dropout Turned CEO Worth $1.6 Billion

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Why Morgan Stanley Analysts Doubled Apple iPhone Predictions | Entrepreneur

    Why Morgan Stanley Analysts Doubled Apple iPhone Predictions | Entrepreneur

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    Apple entered the AI game last month with Apple Intelligence, a suite of new features designed to bring AI straight to iPhone, iPad, and Mac screens. Apple’s AI has a catch though: it only works on the newest iPhones and it could be the reason why millions of iPhone users with older models seriously think about upgrading, say Morgan Stanley analysts.

    Morgan Stanley analysts named Apple a top-pick stock on Monday, after which Apple shares jumped to an all-time high, per Bloomberg. Apple Intelligence is a “clear catalyst” for iPhone upgrades and will enable Apple to sell nearly half a billion iPhones in the next two years, analyst Eric Woodring stated.

    Apple Intelligence is expected to come out this fall for the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max — older iPhones will not have access to Apple’s AI. The update offers AI-generated emojis, a smarter Siri, and direct access to ChatGPT, though some anticipated Siri AI upgrades may arrive next year.

    Related: Apple Is Expanding What The iPhone Can Do. Here’s What’s Changing Right Away.

    “We believe that there is record level of pent-up demand entering the iPhone 16 cycle later this year,” Woodring noted, adding that Apple Intelligence delivers “unique-to-the-Apple-ecosystem” value.

    Morgan Stanley previously forecasted that Apple would sell around 230 million iPhones in the same time frame, making the new prediction more than double the previous one.

    Apple is also uniquely positioned to be the AI “base camp” for its customers, “just as it has done for digital content (iPod) and social media (iPhone),” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Ananda Baruah.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook waves to customers before they enter Apple’s 5th Avenue store. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Other analysts at different firms have made similar predictions. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told Reuters in June that more than 15% of existing iPhone users could buy the new iPhone Apple is expected to release this fall.

    Related: Apple Labels These 3 Iconic Products ‘Vintage,’ and Soon-to-Be ‘Obsolete’

    Ives estimated that 270 million iPhone users have not bought a new model in the past four years.

    More than half of Apple’s overall revenue in the second quarter of 2024 came from iPhones; Apple has the majority of the market share for smartphones in the U.S.

    At the time of writing, Apple was the largest company in the world with a $3.584 trillion market cap. Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, and Amazon followed.

    Related: Warren Buffett Had to Work From His iPhone After Telephone Lines Went Down at Berkshire Hathaway: ‘I’m Glad We Didn’t Sell All of Our Apple’

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Microsoft AI CEO: Anything on Open Web Fair Use for Training | Entrepreneur

    Microsoft AI CEO: Anything on Open Web Fair Use for Training | Entrepreneur

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    In order to write, lead advertising campaigns, and power side hustles AI needs training material. ChatGPT needed about 300 billion words to get off the ground and continues to train itself based on how users interact with it.

    However, human beings aren’t being credited or compensated for creating the content that AI is eating up. Authors, artists, and news organizations have already filed countless copyright lawsuits against AI giants like OpenAI and Microsoft as they find that AI bots can talk about their copyrighted work “too accurately” — indicating that the works are in the AI’s training data.

    That’s why Microsoft’s AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was asked at the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June if AI companies have essentially stolen the world’s intellectual property.

    Suleyman’s answer? Almost all content on the Internet, with one possible exception, is fair game for AI training.

    Related: A Microsoft-Partnered AI Startup Is Being Sued By the Biggest Record Labels in the World

    “I think that with respect to content that is already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ’90s has been that it is fair use,” Suleyman said.

    Suleyman stated that “anyone” can copy or recreate the content on the open web.

    “That has been freeway,” he said. “That’s been the understanding.”

    However, some news sites and publishers have asked not to be scraped or crawled.

    “That’s the gray area and I think that’s going to work its way through the courts,” Suleyman said.

    Mustafa Suleyman. Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Suleyman leads Microsoft AI at a time when Microsoft has invested billions into the technology. His position on what is fair use and what isn’t fleshes out how AI companies might defend intellectual property allegations in court.

    OpenAI, for example, has allegedly used more than a million hours of YouTube videos to train ChatGPT. When asked whether YouTube or social media videos were used to make OpenAI’s video generator Sora, the company’s chief technology officer Mira Murati said, “We used publicly available data and licensed data” and wouldn’t specify further.

    AI also appears to be eating work generated by other AI, resulting in lower-quality output. Experts estimate that 90% of online content will be AI-generated within the next two years.

    Related: The Most Downloaded News App in the U.S. May Have Published Dozens of Fake, AI-Written Stories

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Nvidia Is Becoming the IBM of AI, Says Former Apple Engineer | Entrepreneur

    Nvidia Is Becoming the IBM of AI, Says Former Apple Engineer | Entrepreneur

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    Jim Keller, an engineer who has worked at AMD, Apple, and Tesla and is now CEO of an AI chip startup taking on Nvidia, says that Nvidia is “becoming the IBM of the AI era.”

    On a Sunday podcast episode of DemystifySci, Keller brought up Nvidia’s AI chips and called attention to companies like Microsoft and Google that are using Nvidia’s technology to power their own innovations.

    “All the big tech companies are in an arms race and they’re all calling Nvidia,” Keller said.

    Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Turned Down a Merger Offer in the Company’s Early Days, According to Insiders. Here’s Why.

    Keller, who now leads the $2 billion AI chip startup Tenstorrent, which has funding from Samsung and Hyundai, stated that Nvidia currently has “the best processors by functionality.”

    He then said that Nvidia is “slowly becoming the IBM of the AI era,” adding, “We’ll see how that goes. I run an AI tech company so I have opinions about that too.”

    Jim Keller, chief executive officer of Tenstorrent. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Nvidia is now the industry leader for AI chips, with over 80% of the market share. It benefits from a first-mover advantage in AI computing; Nvidia claims to have started investing in AI and machine learning development starting in 2006.

    Related: Employees Who Worked at This Company for the Past 5 Years Are Now Multi-Millionaires in ‘Semi-Retirement’

    IBM, too, could be considered a first mover in the PC market. Though IBM did not invent the PC, the company’s 1981 personal desktop opened computers up to a broader audience and generated $1 billion in revenue in its first year.

    IBM “set a technology standard” with its first PC, according to IEEE Spectrum.

    Keller has previously weighed in on the cost of AI chips, both from Nvidia and from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which currently uses Nvidia’s chips. He claimed in April that Nvidia could have cut research and development costs and in February that he could build AI processors for all workloads and AI companies at one-eighth of the cost suggested by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

    Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in March that its next-generation AI chip would cost more than $30,000.

    Related: Here’s How Much Investing $10,000 in Nvidia When It Went Public Would Be Worth Now

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • AI Marketing Secrets: 3 Game-Changing GPT-4 Use Cases to Make Money with AI | Entrepreneur

    AI Marketing Secrets: 3 Game-Changing GPT-4 Use Cases to Make Money with AI | Entrepreneur

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    Tackle AI’s toughest questions with Ben Angel, mapping the business terrain for 20 years. Master the AI landscape and reach peak productivity and profits with insights from his latest work, “The Wolf is at The Door — How to Survive and Thrive in an AI-Driven World.” Click here to download your ‘Free AI Success Kit‘ and get your free chapter from his latest book today.

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    Ben Angel

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  • Apple Likely Rolling Out Best Siri AI Features in 2025: Report | Entrepreneur

    Apple Likely Rolling Out Best Siri AI Features in 2025: Report | Entrepreneur

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    Though Apple announced some sweeping AI changes to Siri at its WWDC event last month, it’s been unclear when these changes will reach iPhone screens. But a new report from Bloomberg chief correspondent Mark Gurman clarifies the timeline.

    Gurman, who has an 86.5% accuracy rate on the Apple information he has leaked in the past, wrote in his Sunday Power On newsletter that though Apple Intelligence AI will come out this fall, the most important Siri updates will arrive next spring.

    This includes Siri accessing and working with other Apple apps based on a simple command. For example, when asked, “Hey Siri, what’s my driver’s license number?” Siri will soon be able to go through the Photos app, find a picture of the license plate, and even be able to put the numbers in a web form.

    Related: Apple Is Reportedly Eyeing the Home Robot Space After Scrapping Its 10-Year Electric Car Project

    Another Siri upgrade on lock until next year is Siri understanding context, or being able to interpret what an iPhone user is looking at.

    In the fall, Siri will still get supercharged with ChatGPT and get a design makeover, but the voice assistant will lack those key contextual features, according to Gurman.

    The Siri update won’t be complete until developers beta test the features starting in January and Apple releases the upgrade publicly in the spring of 2025, per the same report.

    A person holds a phone in front of the Siri logo. Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

    The Bloomberg report aligns with Apple’s public statements.

    Apple noted in its June press release that Apple Intelligence will start rolling out this fall in beta, but “some features, software platforms, and additional languages will come over the course of the next year.” The fine print leaves room for certain features to debut later, after Apple Intelligence’s fall release.

    Apple stepped into the AI game nearly two years after ChatGPT was launched but decided to take a more collaborative approach to AI development. Along with creating AI in-house, Apple also chose to integrate ChatGPT directly into its products and open up the doors for AI models from other competitors.

    Related: Apple Reportedly Isn’t Paying OpenAI to Use ChatGPT in iPhones

    AI could also prompt hundreds of millions of iPhone users with older models to upgrade this fall — Apple Intelligence only works on the newest iPhones.

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Apple: iPhone X, HomePod, AirPods ‘Vintage,’ Soon ‘Obsolete’ | Entrepreneur

    Apple: iPhone X, HomePod, AirPods ‘Vintage,’ Soon ‘Obsolete’ | Entrepreneur

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    Three groundbreaking Apple devices — the iPhone X, HomePod, and original AirPods — are now considered vintage. And the clock is ticking on how long they will be eligible for repairs.

    Apple added the three to its vintage product list on Monday, meaning that it stopped selling the products more than five, and less than seven, years ago.

    Apple customers who use these devices are now facing a limited window when it comes to repairs. Apple Stores and authorized repair shops will only offer service for the iPhone X, HomePod, and original AirPods for up to two more years max, depending on the parts available.

    Related: Will Apple AI Convince You to Upgrade Your Old iPhone?

    The three products are all instantly recognizable as a major shift or addition to Apple’s product lineup.

    The $999 iPhone X was the first Apple phone to switch from TouchID to FaceID, allowing users to unlock the iPhone X with a glance and swapping out a home button for an entirely touch-activated screen. Apple assured customers that it kept its facial scans out of the cloud to make the feature more secure.

    Apple now has the majority of smartphone market share in the U.S., with about 53% of the market.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the launch of the iPhone X on September 17, 2017. (Photo by Qi Heng/Visual China Group via Getty Images)

    The $349 HomePod was Apple’s first smart speaker; some users have called it a “significant and risky investment.” Apple sold an estimated three million HomePods in the U.S. by 2018, according to a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners report.

    Since the original HomePod’s release, Apple has expanded the product line with the 2020 HomePod mini and the 2023 HomePod 2nd Generation.

    Related: What’s Next for Apple After Vision Pro? Home Robots: Report

    The $159 original AirPods were Apple’s way of “reinventing” wireless headphones, per the company’s 2016 press release.

    Apple introduced an “innovative” charging case and a double-tap feature that allowed users to tap their AirPods to access Siri.

    Devices on the vintage list end up in Apple’s “obsolete” category after they pass the seven-year mark. At that point, Apple withdraws hardware service and service stores can no longer order replacement parts.

    Related: Apple iPhone 7 Settlement: How to Make a Claim By Deadline

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Stop Overwhelming Your Online Customers With Information Overload. Hook Them In With This Approach Instead. | Entrepreneur

    Stop Overwhelming Your Online Customers With Information Overload. Hook Them In With This Approach Instead. | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written content. I don’t know about you, but it seems like there is hardly enough time to gain users’ interest, let alone relay the information you want to share — and the information they want to find.

    However, following best practices, there is no reason to bombard users with an avalanche of information when they land on your homepage. While there may be a lot of great information about your business, putting it in their faces when they arrive can have the inverse effect, making users feel overwhelmed and pushing them to leave the site.

    So, what is the alternative? Thoughtfully crafted messages and content aligned with the customer journey and revealed through a slow, strategic drip known as progressive disclosure.

    Related: Your Online Customer Experience Is More Than a Buzzword — It’s the Backbone of Your Business. Here’s How to Optimize It.

    But what is progressive disclosure?

    Progressive disclosure is about strategically revealing the information a user wants or needs at the precise moment the customer wants or needs it (rather than throwing it at them upfront). This is essentially a strategic approach to planning and releasing content throughout the customer journey to maximize engagement and move a customer through the conversion funnel.

    Here’s an example: If you have a product-heavy website, the navigation should direct the user through a seamless navigation. If the navigation is designed strategically to align with the customer journey, then each click is a point on the path of progressive disclosure. As users move around the site, they will slowly but surely learn more about the products and services and find the information they need. This is precisely why websites use a thoughtful navigation system based on logic and integrated into the information architecture that outlines the content and where it should be placed within the site.

    Why is progressive disclosure powerful?

    The simple answer is that this process is customer-centric. It focuses on what customers want to accomplish rather than what you, the business owner, want to share.

    In addition, progressive disclosure accomplishes the following:

    • Reduces friction: Information overload leads to confusion and decision paralysis. By presenting information relevant to the user’s immediate needs, you remove unnecessary hurdles and guide them seamlessly toward their goals.
    • Boosts engagement: Curiosity thrives when there is something more to discover. As users uncover new features and functionalities, their interest remains piqued, encouraging further exploration and deeper product engagement.
    • Builds trust: When users feel they’re being led, not overwhelmed, trust flourishes. Progressive disclosure shows respect for their time and attention, fostering a positive relationship between them and your product.

    Related: 7 Ecommerce Customer Experience Strategies for Effective Branding in 2024

    Want to rework your website so it’s aligned with your customers?

    If you want to rework your website or consider how your content is aligned with your customers, here are a few considerations that will help ensure you are applying progressive disclosure principles:

    • Map the customer journey. Understand the different stages users go through, from awareness to consideration, purchase and beyond. Identify their needs and pain points at each stage.
    • Prioritize information. Categorize features and information based on their importance and relevance to each stage of the journey. Highlight core functionalities initially and unveil advanced features later.
    • Use microlearning. Chunk information into digestible pieces, delivered through tutorials, tooltips, and interactive prompts. This makes learning effortless and avoids cognitive overload.
    • Leverage visual cues. Employ clear design elements like hierarchy, icons, and animation to guide users’ attention and highlight key information.
    • Gather feedback. Continuously analyze user behaviors on your site and collect feedback to understand what resonates. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and implement valuable changes.
    • Use multiple touchpoints to communicate. While this strategy can be applied to a website, it applies to all digital communication channels. Most who visit your website either have a specific reason or are fact-finding. So consider using other digital channels, such as SMS and digital cards, to communicate more important (or urgent) messages in real-time.

    Applying progressive disclosure isn’t just about withholding information; it’s about crafting a captivating narrative that unfolds as the user interacts with your brand. Applying this approach can foster trust, increase engagement, and ultimately create satisfied customers.

    Remember, we’re not just selling products or services; we’re guiding users on a journey, and every step along the way matters. By unveiling the right information at the right time, we transform their experience from overwhelming to empowering, paving the way for sustainable success.

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    Louis Lombardi

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  • Get a Lifetime of Raspberry Pi & Arduino Lessons for $70 | Entrepreneur

    Get a Lifetime of Raspberry Pi & Arduino Lessons for $70 | Entrepreneur

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    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    Entrepreneurs leading all varieties of businesses interact with developers and projects that require expertise and command of languages and concepts like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Linux, and more. Whether you want to save yourself costs by becoming more hands-on, or you want to better oversee contractors and developers who you work with, a strong educational foundation is a must.

    The All-In-One Raspberry Pi & Arduino Developer Bundle is on sale for only $69.99 (reg. $423) while this deal lasts. This fantastic resource features nine courses and over 60 hours of material on the concepts and languages mentioned above.

    For example, in Raspberry Pi for Beginners: Complete Course, instructor Eduoard Renard leads 98 lessons on how to master your Raspberry Pi. He shows you how to build a surveillance and alarm project, how to use Raspberry Pi’s GPIOs to control hardware components, and how to create a web server. The course unsurprisingly has an average rating of 4.6/5 stars among students.

    Renard is an entrepreneur and software engineer with an average instructor rating of 4.6/5 stars.

    The bundle also features Arduino for Beginners; Complete Course, which has 148 lessons that will guide you through your first Arduino project, show you how to create an Arduino circuit, and more. The bundle includes more content on Raspberry Pi and Arduino as well as courses on C++, Linux, and others.

    Don’t miss your chance to invest in a greater understanding of tech and business with The All-In-One Raspberry Pi & Arduino Developer Bundle, which is on sale for only $69.99 (reg. $423) while this deal lasts.

    StackSocial prices subject to change.

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    Entrepreneur Store

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  • How Keeping Things Simple Helps Your Company Innovate and Grow | Entrepreneur

    How Keeping Things Simple Helps Your Company Innovate and Grow | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    According to Steve Jobs, “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” It seems obvious that keeping things simple will help your business succeed. And yet, it’s surprisingly difficult to do it.

    If simplicity is this challenging, you need to be intentional to make it happen. That’s why many successful companies actively prioritize it as a value. Ikea’s focus on simplicity comes across in its designs, catalog, store experience and more. One of Nike’s 11 management maxims is “simplify and go,” focusing teams on moving fast to adapt to new technologies and fashions.

    I believe that simplicity is a driver for genius innovation. In fact, my journey as an entrepreneur began with an idea to simplify a complex and bureaucratic process. Today, the success of that idea has created new challenges. We serve millions of customers across over 100 countries, with many different needs — to meet them all, we’d need a ton of different features. So, we have to find the simplest ideas that will improve the experience for the largest number of users.

    Related: Here’s Why You Should Embrace Simplicity as a Strategy (and 3 Ways to Do It)

    Simplifying innovation is a recipe for success

    Some people think that to be an entrepreneur, you have to bring groundbreaking technological innovation to the world. But actually, there’s a lot of room to innovate on top of new technologies, simplifying them and packaging them for specific use cases.

    If you think of two of the technology giants of our times, Google and Apple, neither of them invented their core technologies. Apple wasn’t the first company to create a home computer or cellphone, Google wasn’t the first company to develop a search engine. They made existing innovations simpler and more user-friendly, and it was a recipe for success.

    This is particularly relevant right now in the middle of a revolution fueled by generative AI. There are definitely huge opportunities in creating new AI-driven technologies, but there are even more opportunities in finding ways to package these technologies into user-friendly software for specific use cases.

    To do this, first master the tech, and then put yourself in the shoes of your potential user. Try to understand what is really useful about the innovation and what barriers people might face when trying to use it.

    The key is to find a way to simplify the technology, making it easier for your target users to understand and adopt it. Do this, and you’re onto a winner.

    Work smarter by simplifying communication

    Another part of any business where simplification is super important is communications and processes. As companies grow, it becomes harder to get people on the same page or ensure continuity between departments. Poor communication creates misunderstandings, which can lead to mistakes. The more people involved in a project, the more likely it is that workflows will become complicated. This all slows things down, wastes time and restricts your ability to make an impact on the business.

    Let’s start with communication. Using a single, simple language across the company is crucial for people to be able to understand each other. For example, try to use less jargon and fewer three-letter acronyms, or make sure to explain them if you do. By creating organized archives of historical documents and plans, you help onboard new people and anyone can find important information fast when they need it.

    Create a culture of transparency where different departments share their plans with each other. Create frameworks to facilitate this, like quarterly reviews or roadmap deployments. It’s not possible for employees to be actively involved in everything going on in the company, but by helping everyone take part passively, you’re making sure they’re on the same page and can facilitate ideas and collaborations across teams.

    When you do have to communicate, encourage your teams to do it in the most straightforward way possible. By simplifying communication and making it easy to understand, discussions are more focused and decisions are made faster.

    Related: The Key to Effectively Communicating Important Messages Is All About Simplicity

    Put simplicity at the heart of your product

    A simplification mindset can also be applied to product development. By making small incremental changes, sometimes with test groups of users, you can use the inspect and adapt methodology to understand their adoption, as well as any issues, and innovate further accordingly. Every so often, you can combine all these small changes into a large product update that you roll out for everyone.

    For example: A company added a lot of extra value to its product with new features and releases. In theory, this was great for the users, but some found the UI overwhelming and new pricing options confusing. To use a metaphor, some people are happy to be given ingredients to make their own meal, but most would prefer the chef do the cooking so they can enjoy the final result.

    Having understood this through their feedback, the company introduced a change to its UI that helped users get the end result they wanted, without having to work hard to achieve it themselves. By simplifying, the company maximized the impact of the value of all the new additions to the product.

    Related: Keep It Simple: Why Simplicity Is Key To Making Your Brand Win

    Richard Branson once said: “Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple.” Simplicity won’t come about by accident — you need to be intentional. You have to call it out and make it a focus for the whole company. You need to put it at the heart of everything. And when you succeed, the impact will be huge.

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    Itzik Elbaz

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  • Adobe New Terms for Photoshop, Illustrator Infuriates Users | Entrepreneur

    Adobe New Terms for Photoshop, Illustrator Infuriates Users | Entrepreneur

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    Adobe’s changes to its terms of use have sparked outrage on social media, as creatives publicly push back against Adobe having full access to the work they create.

    Adobe recently updated its terms of use to clarify that it can access user content automatically and manually “using techniques such as machine learning.”

    The company can use, replicate, or “create derivative works” based on what its users create on Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator. It can also look at subscriber content, even if the user is under a non-disclosure agreement, which effectively breaks the NDA, per Apple Insider.

    The language of the new terms also opens the door for Adobe to use content created by subscribers, even pieces protected by NDAs, to train its AI image generator Firefly.

    Related: Adobe’s Firefly Image Generator Was Partially Trained on AI Images From Midjourney, Other Rivals

    In a Wednesday post on X liked more than 71,000 times and viewed by more than 9.5 million people, creative concept artist Sam Santala called out Adobe for its new terms.

    “So am I reading this right?” Santala wrote. “I can’t use Photoshop unless I’m okay with you having full access to anything I create with it, INCLUDING NDA work?”

    Santala noted that he couldn’t talk to Adobe’s support chat, uninstall Photoshop, or even sign in and cancel his subscription unless he agreed to the terms.

    Santala’s post was one in a chorus. Other creatives, from toy designers to movie directors, also publicly took issue with Adobe’s new terms.

    Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief product officer for Adobe Creative Cloud, responded to Santala’s post and stated: “Adobe does NOT train any GenAI models on customer’s content, and we obviously have tight security around any form of access to customer’s content.”

    The Adobe Creative Cloud has an estimated 33 million subscribers.

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Amazon’s Fake Book Problem With Upcoming UFO Tome ‘Imminent’ | Entrepreneur

    Amazon’s Fake Book Problem With Upcoming UFO Tome ‘Imminent’ | Entrepreneur

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    The former senior leader of a Pentagon unit that studied UFOs is releasing a highly anticipated book this August — and some have already mistakenly ordered from deceptive Amazon listings and received superficially convincing fakes of the book.

    Luis Elizondo led the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a U.S. governmental unit that looked into UFOs before he resigned in 2017.

    In late May, Elizondo announced a book called Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs, stating that the book “underwent a 9-month U.S. Government security review.” Imminent is slated for release on August 20 and has already jumped to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list in the military aviation history, UFOs, and unexplained mysteries categories — but some who pre-ordered the book on Amazon have already received fakes.

    One Amazon shopper who pre-ordered Imminent received a book last week with a cover as expected. When they opened it up, though, it was full of blank pages.

    A post from another X user shows that a fake copy of the book existed on Amazon under a different author name (Didier Alarie) but with the same book cover. The fake was listed at a cheaper price.

    Though Elizondo clarified that he was the only author behind the book, the problem of scam book postings on Amazon extends beyond Imminent.

    “Scam books on Amazon have been a problem for years,” Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, told NPR in March.

    Every new book seems to spawn others that try “to steal sales,” according to Rasenberger.

    Related: How a Self-Published Author Sold 500,000 Copies of Her Book

    With ChatGPT, the problem multiplies. AI-generated summaries masquerading as ebooks are currently oversaturating Amazon, per a January Wired report, especially ahead of major book releases.

    The issue persists even though Amazon currently allows sellers to upload a maximum of three books per day.

    Copyrighted books are also allegedly being used to train AI.

    Author and comedian Sarah Silverman filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI last year, along with authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, alleging that ChatGPT was trained on their copyrighted books.

    Related: Authors Are Suing OpenAI Because ChatGPT Is Too ‘Accurate’ — Here’s What That Means

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Elon Musk Is Feuding With Meta AI Chief Yann LeCun | Entrepreneur

    Elon Musk Is Feuding With Meta AI Chief Yann LeCun | Entrepreneur

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    A leading AI researcher has publicly called out Elon Musk for his “blatantly false” AI predictions as the clash between the two continues after a week of back-and-forth.

    In a Sunday post on Musk-owned X, Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun said that he disagreed with Elon Musk’s treatment of scientists and approach to the AI hype.

    “I mean, expressing an ambitious vision for the future is great,” LeCun wrote. “But telling the public blatantly false predictions (“AGI next year”, “1 million robotaxis by 2020”, “AGI will kill us all, lets pause”,…) is very counterproductive (also illegal in some cases).”

    Musk has made those predictions. In April, he said that AGI, or artificial general intelligence smarter than the most intelligent human, would arrive “probably next year, within two years.”

    He also promised 1 million robotaxis by 2020 on a 2019 call with investors and said at an AI safety summit in November that “there is some chance, above zero, that AI will kill us all.”

    Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta. Photographer: Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    LeCun also disagreed with how Musk treats his scientists, pointing out that research needs publications and openness to advance.

    “Secrecy hampers progress and discourages talents from joining the effort,” LeCun wrote.

    Musk’s startup, xAI, raised $6 billion last week and stated that the money would go towards bringing its first products to market. The AI startup only has one public-facing product so far: an AI chatbot called Grok that is only available to premium X users.

    xAI made the AI model behind Grok publicly available in March.

    Related: Jack Dorsey Announces His Departure from Bluesky on X, Calls Elon Musk’s Platform ‘Freedom Technology’

    Musk did not directly respond to LeCun on Sunday but posted a meme on the same day parodying LeCun’s posts.

    LeCun and Musk’s disagreement started last week when LeCun responded to an xAI job posting and criticized Musk’s leadership.

    Musk then taunted LeCun’s research background, telling him to “try harder” after LeCun said he published over 80 technical papers since January 2022.

    LeCun did not respond to Entrepreneur’s request for comment.

    Related: ‘We Can All Agree Elon Isn’t Serious’: Mark Zuckerberg Slams Elon Musk as Feud Continues

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • 5 PR Mistakes AI Startups Must Avoid | Entrepreneur

    5 PR Mistakes AI Startups Must Avoid | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The world of entrepreneurship has been transformed in a big way by the emergence of artificial intelligence. The numbers speak volumes. In 2023, AI startups worldwide raised an impressive $50 billion. And in Q1 2024, they had already scored $11.4 billion, roughly 17% of the total global funding.

    Investors definitely have a soft spot for AI, which explains why it’s still attracting hefty financing during the venture capital winter. It’s no wonder that at Y Combinator demo days in 2024, a whopping 172 out of 247 projects were all about AI.

    The AI boom — from niche to must-have

    AI has come a long way from its days in science fiction and academia. What was once considered niche and impractical has blossomed into a massive industry. Whether it’s voice-activated assistants on our phones or recommendation algorithms that help us shop online, AI is now a vital part of our routines.

    Generative artificial intelligence is the talk of the town, thanks to user-friendly programs like Google’s Gemini (formerly known as Bard) and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This surge in popularity is expected to skyrocket the Gen AI market to a whopping $1.3 trillion by 2032, up from a modest $40 billion in 2022.

    But it’s not just consumer products — in heavily regulated sectors such as healthcare, finance and government services, Gen AI opens up unprecedented opportunities to automate tasks and synthesize data. Take, for example, HCA Healthcare, one of the world’s largest healthcare providers, which is using it to speed up the process of drafting medical notes. And Moody’s, the financial ratings agency, has rolled out its Gen AI Research Assistant to help customers uncover fresh insights from credit research, data and analytics.

    Startups are eager to leave their mark and bring innovation to the table. According to Tracxn, there are over 67,000 AI and machine learning projects, along with more established AI firms globally. The next wave of AI enablement market players is already emerging. Startups assist with Large Language Models training, deployment and evaluation, as well as tackle critical AI concerns, from preventing hallucinations to addressing ethical dilemmas.

    The big question is, how do you stand out among this sea of competitors and avoid getting lost in the crowd?

    Related: 4 Ways to Build a Successful AI Startup

    The PR pitfalls to dodge in a crowded market

    Effective public relations has emerged as a make-or-break factor for AI projects in a hypercompetitive environment. Yet, despite its importance, many startups miss the mark on PR, unknowingly sabotaging their efforts to attract and keep customers. These are the most common mistakes they make.

    1. Putting all eggs in the product basket

    Having cutting-edge tech isn’t enough to guarantee success anymore. Startups tend to assume that their product will naturally speak for itself. Sure, having a superior AI solution is crucial. However, neglecting the importance of strategic promotion and brand building can be a costly oversight.

    To catch attention, AI projects should take the lead in engaging with their target audience. This means reaching out to potential customers through various channels, like social media, platforms such as Product Hunt and popular media outlets, including Forbes, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur and many others.

    But it doesn’t stop there. In a truly competitive environment, it’s essential to stand out from the crowd. Following the same old routine as everyone else won’t do justice to your offering. One effective way to differentiate yourself is by not only growing your company’s brand but also your own personal brand as a founder. Your reputation is the bedrock of your influence, which can sometimes hold more weight than the product itself when it comes to attracting investors or partners.

    2. Neglecting audience analysis

    Another common mistake that many AI startups stumble upon is forgetting to personalize their communications for different audiences. Some projects go for a “one-size-fits-all” approach, hoping to catch everyone’s eye. However, this broad strategy often waters down the message and misses out on opportunities to connect with potential customers as well as investors.

    Imagine there’s a startup developing AI-powered chatbots, aiming to serve both companies and individual users. However, in their PR efforts, they’re only talking about personal content creation. They’re overlooking enterprises by not highlighting how their product can assist in preparing marketing strategies and descriptions. Similarly, some AI projects might use complex jargon that only appeals to tech enthusiasts, instead of crafting compelling narratives that resonate with everyday users.

    To avoid falling into this trap, market players need to conduct thorough research, segment their audience based on relevant criteria like industry, demographics and pain points, and adjust their PR strategies accordingly. As I’ve mentioned in another article, think of your business like a Rubik’s Cube. Just like the cube’s various colors, your company can be showcased from multiple angles tailored to your audience. Always be ready to adapt and roll the dice.

    Related: The Success of Your PR Campaign Depends on These 3 Essential Elements

    3. Starting PR campaigns prematurely

    Timing is everything when it comes to PR. Starting too early may do more harm than good. In fact, it’s a common mistake for startups to launch media campaigns when they’re still in the early MVP stages because they often fail to meet clients’ and investors’ expectations. As a PR specialist, I often see businesses struggling to provide me with answers about their activities, even when it’s for their own sake. Journalists, partners, investors and end users, who have different goals and standards, are much more demanding to satisfy.

    Let’s consider an example. Recently, Krutrim AI unveiled the beta version of its highly anticipated LLM and an AI assistant similar to ChatGPT, but with a focus on Indian culture. Soon, the AI chatbot faced criticism from users who found inaccuracies in responses ranging from general queries to translations, mathematical problems and logical reasoning. The bot even claimed to be produced by OpenAI, with the company attributing these issues to problems in the training dataset.

    Krutrim’s founder has a proven track record of success and has already founded two unicorns in India: Ola Cabs and Ola Electric. It’s highly likely that the company will improve its model and address any concerns raised. It may not be the case for smaller AI startups. It’s better to wait until you’ve built a solid foundation with clear positioning, reliable processes, and ideally some tangible results, before diving into PR.

    4. Overhyping and underdelivering

    In the race to grab attention and secure funding, some AI startups tend to exaggerate their products and capabilities, making big promises they can’t really back up. This often leads to disappointment among customers, investors and stakeholders when the startup fails to live up to its hype.

    Last year, Inflection AI managed to raise over $1 billion at a valuation of $4 billion, with heavyweights like Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt and Nvidia backing it. Inflection’s flagship product was Pi, an AI chatbot designed to offer emotional support and advice to consumers. However, rumors are now swirling that the startup will abandon Pi less than a year after its launch. It seems the company wasn’t able to deliver on its promises.

    Sometimes, taking a more cautious and transparent approach to communication is preferable. Instead of making lofty claims, focus on highlighting real achievements and milestones. By being honest and upfront, startups can build trust with their audience and investors, ensuring a more sustainable path to success.

    5. Ignoring AI ethics and data privacy

    In an AI-driven world, ethics and data privacy are more important than ever. We’ve even seen the rise of organizations like The Israeli Association for Ethics in AI, which work hand in hand with researchers, developers, policymakers and everyday users to ensure responsible innovation.

    Sadly, not all AI startups are giving these concerns the attention they deserve in PR efforts. This oversight could lead to serious repercussions, including damage to reputation and legal troubles. Whether it’s mishandling personal data or failing to address ethical implications, negligence can push potential customers away.

    Take OpenAI, which is currently facing legal challenges. Most recently, The New York Times sued them for copyright infringement. They’re also dealing with a bunch of lawsuits from authors, artists, music labels and others. One even alleges that the company improperly obtained massive amounts of personal data, such as medical records and information about minors, to train its ChatGPT model.

    To avoid such risks, AI projects should make compliance and ethical conduct their top priorities. Adhering to guidelines and demonstrating a commitment to responsible AI development is one of the key factors to long-term success in the complex AI landscape.

    Related: What Will It Take to Build a Truly Ethical AI? These 3 Tips Can Help.

    Looking ahead

    AI startups might face tougher challenges in the near future. Some leaders in the field begin to wonder if the industry is overhyped, as only a handful of companies have been able to build profitable businesses. In times of uncertainty, effective PR could become the deciding factor between success and failure.

    By steering clear of common pitfalls and embracing strategic promotion strategies, AI startups can boost their visibility, attract both customers and investors, and ultimately gain a competitive edge in the market. Ultimately, it’s all about showing the world what sets you and your AI solution apart.

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    Evgeniya Zaslavskaya

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  • 3 Major Mistakes Companies Are Making With AI That Is Limiting Their ROI | Entrepreneur

    3 Major Mistakes Companies Are Making With AI That Is Limiting Their ROI | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I was talking to a friend recently who serves as the CTO at a mid-sized company and was struck by his sudden change in perspective on AI. Despite initial skepticism, he now believes artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize his industry. Yet, his main challenge has been convincing the rest of his executive team to adopt an AI roadmap. This scenario isn’t isolated.

    In the last year, we’ve seen a contracted hype cycle around AI, which has caused many leaders to question if an investment in AI can truly yield proportional returns. These concerns aren’t without merit. VC firm Sequoia Capital recently estimated the AI industry spent $50 billion on Nvidia chips to train AI models last year, yet only yielded $3 billion in revenue.

    Despite that disparity in investment, Sequoia went on to hypothesize AI is likely “the single greatest value creation opportunity” mankind has ever known, comparing its impact on business to that of the cloud transition. Unlike the cloud, however, which replaced software, AI has the potential to replace services, which the VC firm estimated has a total addressable market in the trillions. It’s the reason tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon continue to double down on AI investment.

    Related: What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Here Are Its Benefits, Uses and More

    With so many competing narratives around the future of AI, it’s no wonder companies are misaligned on the best approach for integrating it into their organizations. The problem is most leaders are still looking at AI in its limited capacity as a software or tool rather than its ability to operate in a human-like capacity. Here are three common mistakes I see companies make when it comes to implementing an AI roadmap.

    Underestimating and limiting AI’s potential

    AI is widely viewed as a tool or software, but because it can create and reason, it has the ability to interact in a human-like capacity. Much like a junior employee who gets better at their job with experience, AI has the ability to learn from its interactions and refine its methods to improve its output and take on more work overtime.

    For this reason, leaders who think of leveraging AI as “smart people” rather than software are better positioned to harness its full potential. Think about a company’s organization chart. If you were to write down the skills and tasks associated with each employee, then you can start to visualize where AI can be trained to augment or automate these tasks.

    AI already outperforms humans in areas such as image classification, visual reasoning, and even English understanding, according to Stanford University’s recently published AI Index report. As of 2023, the report showed AI has surpassed human-level performance on several benchmark tasks, succeeding in helping workers become more productive and produce better-quality work. Another study out of the University of Arkansas showed AI outperformed humans in standardized tests of creative potential.

    Unlike humans, however, AI scales up effortlessly as business demands increase, handling workloads without the physical and mental limits of humans. Adopting AI in this way means rethinking our team structures and workflows. It involves training teams to work alongside AI to enhance their roles and drive innovation.

    This perspective shift is crucial because it allows leaders, who may not be accustomed to deploying technology themselves, to innately understand how to best leverage AI across their entire organization.

    2. Trying to mimic another company’s AI use case

    The more you start thinking of AI as smart people, the more you realize how individual every organization’s approach to building an AI roadmap should be. I like to think of AI implementation as the onboarding of new team members who need to fit within the specific dynamics of your company.

    Take human resources for example — one company might have 10 people there; another only three, even if they’re the same size. This difference isn’t just about company size or revenue. It’s about how these companies have evolved.

    Each business has its own unique structure, culture and needs. In order to realize generative AI’s full potential, PwC reported, businesses must take advantage of its capacity to be customized to a company’s specific needs and avoid the use-case trap.

    Of course, general use cases for AI exist, particularly when it comes to enhancing customer service or sales. But, when you’re looking at a deeper integration of AI into a company’s operations, the approach needs to be custom-built, not copied and pasted from outside case studies.

    Related: I Tested AI Tools So You Don’t Have To. Here’s What Worked — and What Didn’t.

    3. Buying off-the-shelf products — not tailoring AI solutions to your needs

    There are some great off-the-shelf AI products like ChatGPT, Dalle, and translation tools that solve specific problems within a company. The challenge with investing in a boxed solution for AI is that many leaders fail to see how AI can enhance operations at a systemic level.

    The true power of AI lies in its ability to fundamentally transform your operations, not just perform isolated tasks. PwC’s 2024 AI predictions report states that many companies will find attractive ROI from generative AI. Still, few will succeed in achieving transformative value from it — the biggest barrier being the inability of leaders to think beyond boxed solutions and reimagine the way they work with AI.

    When building an AI roadmap, leaders must first conduct a thorough assessment of their company’s processes. This means identifying areas with redundancies, recognizing outsourced tasks that could be automated, and pinpointing where the company invests heavily in human capital. By understanding these dynamics, leaders can tailor AI solutions to their company’s needs and transform how they work.

    The more I talk to company leaders about integrating AI into their businesses, the more apparent it becomes that we leaders need to shift our perspective. When we view AI not just as a technological upgrade but as the onboarding of smart people, we’re better able to integrate it into our internal operations, enhancing performance and human ingenuity along the way.

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    Chris Stegner

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  • How a $10,000 Investment in AI Transformed My Career and Business Strategy | Entrepreneur

    How a $10,000 Investment in AI Transformed My Career and Business Strategy | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In 2023, I took a gamble that paid off beyond expectations: a $10,000 investment in AI education, a decision that reshaped my career and business strategy. Despite my background in accounting and business, diving into AI and machine learning was uncharted territory. But before we dive into the impact of this decision, here’s a little background about me and some of what I did in 2023.

    One thing that I want to stress for those reading this article is that you don’t need to go to school for artificial intelligence, machine learning or data science to be truly great at leveraging it. Sure, having a formal background will never hurt, but it should not deter people who are interested in this field from exploring it. I can attest to my statement because I went to school for a B.S. in accounting and a master’s in business administration, obtained a CPA license in New York State, and then pivoted my career through self-learning business intelligence and AI/ML data science consulting–building a business securing over 135 clients in less than a three year period from scratch — some of which include clients like Microsoft, Tory Burch, U.S. Army, Danaher, etc.

    Why am I saying all of this?

    Well, on November 30, 2022, I met ChatGPT3 for the first time, but I was just another end user. I wasn’t this AI subject matter expert or guru who could break concepts down for people and develop business strategies for AI implementations yet. I was simply present for the initial debut of the large language model technology era and cared enough to want to know more because it was at this point that I knew this technology would change the world forever.

    My mind began to contemplate how generative AI would disrupt many career paths, but it would also create an abundance of opportunities for individuals and companies that know how to use it effectively. Immediately, I started searching online for courses that I could learn about generative AI, and unfortunately, at the time, there were none available, but I didn’t let that stop me. I just started with understanding the basics of AI/ML, even without the deep learning or generative component and signed up for two certificate programs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one focused on building data science solutions leveraging machine learning and AI. The other one focused on building AI products and services and deploying them into production.

    Additionally, I took a few courses on Udemy that focused on how to use the OpenAI APIs and learned important prompt engineering techniques, such as the COSTAR framework. Lastly, I invested in some subscriptions to AI tools such as Midjourney via Discord and others, which enabled me to join a network of other creatives who want to use this technology. I joined plenty of networking groups online across various platforms, which enabled me to soak up information and updates at a rate that was far faster than any media outlet could provide. In total, all of this education bundled to nearly $10,000, but it was an investment that was 100% worth it. Here are three key reasons why:

    1. Network expansion

    During my education reinvestment phase, I identified my go-to AI networks for updates and idea exchanges. This serves as a tremendous resource, especially as the pool of individuals within these networks is so diverse, representing companies, products and services across various industries. This network has led to additional referrals and opportunities to expand business and collaborate with others on projects in an informal setting. As a result of this network, I built an active community on Discord and LinkedIn group of IT AI/ML professionals across various industries of over 400 professionals and have partnered with a couple of them on some innovative AI projects.

    2. New service lines

    After I truly began to understand and see how generative AI worked and what skills people and businesses lacked to effectively deploy solutions and strategies of this nature, I was able to build a team within my business that understands the market need for companies who are looking to adopt generative AI solutions. This decision enabled me to open additional service lines within my business, bringing additional value to our existing client base and referral partnerships and winning new work in the marketplace that previously did not exist. For example, I started offering playbooks for enterprises on Copilot deployment strategy, as well as training and education for SMBs on prompt engineering, doing company-specific webinars tailored to their business needs.

    Related: I Tested AI Tools So You Don’t Have To. Here’s What Worked — and What Didn’t.

    3) Now an official paid speaker in AI

    Some say it would be their dream to get paid to speak. It’s an amazing thing for me to be able to say that I am a paid speaker for foundations, SMB organizations, women entrepreneur groups and other networks at a rate of $5,000 a gig. It was because of my reinvested education, along with client experience in this space, that I could parlay my understanding and knowledge over every genAI project I worked on or a concept I firmly understood into a brand new revenue stream I had not yet considered before. I remember my first paid event — it was a webinar for over 70 SMB owners, and I had the pleasure of broadly sharing the impacts of AI across businesses and industries, giving them lots of ways to consider the impacts of the technology and how it may relate to their day-to-day lives. My goal was to provide them with as much value as possible, and based on the responses and feedback, that goal was achieved.

    This journey taught me the value of continuous learning and adaptation in the fast-evolving world of AI, and for those who are reading this, your next game-changing business strategy could be just one learning experience away.

    My motto has and will always be simple: If you’re going to do something that you believe in, why not go all in?

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    Jacqueline Ann DeStefano-Tangorra, CPA, CFE, MBA

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  • Brand New GPT-4o Revealed: 3 Mind Blowing Updates and 3 Unexpected Challenges for Entrepreneurs | Entrepreneur

    Brand New GPT-4o Revealed: 3 Mind Blowing Updates and 3 Unexpected Challenges for Entrepreneurs | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Unveiling OpenAI’s GPT-4.0: The latest AI with vision, auditory, and emotional intelligence abilities is revolutionizing industries. How will it affect your business?

    In today’s in-depth discussion, I uncover three astonishing updates in GPT-4.0’s technology poised to redefine customer interaction, marketing strategies, and operational efficiency. We also confront three critical challenges this AI evolution brings, including ethical considerations, market disruptions, and the competitive landscape—essential insights to keep your venture at the forefront of innovation.

    Take the AI skills quiz here (available for a limited time) and equip yourself with practical knowledge by grabbing a copy of my new book, ‘The Wolf is at the Door – How to Survive and Thrive in an AI-Driven World.’

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    Ben Angel

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  • Site Traffic Down? Google Just Made Some Big Search Changes | Entrepreneur

    Site Traffic Down? Google Just Made Some Big Search Changes | Entrepreneur

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    Google is now doing the Googling for its expansive U.S. audience — and news publishers are facing potentially multi-billion-dollar consequences caused by the change.

    Google announced on Tuesday that it is applying AI to high-impact elements of search, from AI summaries to pages of AI recommendations in clustered groups. AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and neatly summarize content found across the web, started rolling out on Tuesday to all of Google’s 246 million unique U.S. users.

    The AI summaries mean that websites across the board will get less traffic, as people simply search and read what the AI has generated without clicking on anything.

    As newsrooms get less traffic and less money, their ability to create fresh content diminishes. At the same time, Google becomes less of a gateway to sources and more of a direct source Anastasia Kotsiubynska, Head of SEO at SE Ranking, shared with Entrepreneur.

    “Most likely, there will still be misleading information in search results and hallucinations, and many users will probably use this information without double-checking,” Kotsiubynska cautioned.

    Google I/O 2024 on May 14, 2024. (Photo by Christoph Dernbach/picture alliance via Getty Images)

    Related: Google Introduces Its New Project Astra AI Assistant at Tuesday’s I/O Event — Here’s What Else You Missed

    Google’s search changes could cost websites $2 billion collectively; some could lose two-thirds of their traffic, according to data from media industry growth company Raptive.

    “This will be catastrophic to our traffic, as marketed by Google to further satisfy user queries, leaving even less incentive to click through so that we can monetize our content,” Danielle Coffey, the chief executive of the News/Media Alliance, told CNN Business.

    Google, a major tech company with over 90% of the global market share in search, can now frame search results however it wants with AI summaries, and pull from websites without guaranteeing site traffic or profit.

    Related: Two Yale PhDs Are Trying to Make AI Hallucinate 10x Less

    “AI Overviews relies on content creators’ intellectual property, which raises serious questions about compensation and fairness,” said Raptive in a statement.

    Google does link to sites within its summary, citing its sources.

    Unlike OpenAI, which has entered into deals with major publishers like Axel Springer and The Financial Times to compensate publishers for training AI on their articles and linking directly to them, Google has yet to publicly announce a similar deal with a major publication.

    OpenAI has also earned the ire of some publishers, with the New York Times filing a lawsuit against the company over copyright grounds in December.

    Related: An Elite Financial Publication With a $75 Per Month Subscription Price Is Letting AI Use Its Articles for Training

    Google does have a $60 million deal with Reddit, announced in February, to train its AI on Reddit data.

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Building an Agile Remote Team Is No Easy Feat — But It’s About to Get a Whole Lot Easier Thanks to This Transformative Tool. | Entrepreneur

    Building an Agile Remote Team Is No Easy Feat — But It’s About to Get a Whole Lot Easier Thanks to This Transformative Tool. | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In a post-Zoom world, the question, “Are the right people in the room?” persists, even if only metaphorically. However, having all the relevant cross-functional team members present remotely may not eliminate the danger of silos as effectively as everyone being physically present. Yet, there is a solution beyond the old debate about returning to the office. The tools of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have the potential to create fully immersive environments that give business leaders the best of both worlds.

    In my experience helping mid-level and senior managers in the tech industry become better leaders of their teams, I have found that applying agile methodology is the best way to align teams, but it has proven challenging in remote environments. “Agile” is a project-management methodology that grew out of the software development industry in the early 2000s as a means of delivering work incrementally and collaboratively to allow for frequent course corrections. Its lessons are especially applicable to industries where there is a need for adaptability and responsiveness to change, such as e-commerce and marketing.

    However, remote team members with different expertise tend to communicate blindly without fully understanding each other’s capabilities. This is where the metaverse comes into the picture. Those issues could be solved in a digital universe where employee avatars collaborate in a simulated office and interact directly with products and services in this virtual space. By adopting core best practices developed for the agile methodology now, such as more frequent feedback and cross-functional collaboration, business leaders are setting the stage to take advantage of this evolution.

    Related: Exploring How Virtual Reality is Changing Startups

    Unlock efficiency and collaboration

    The metaverse is not the stuff of science fiction. Advocates of the next internet say it is poised to shift our working lives in the same way that social media and mobile devices did in the web’s first iteration. With 61% of managers citing communication as the biggest challenge of remote work, the metaverse promises to re-introduce some of the elements of in-person collaboration.

    In a video environment, extra effort is required to engage directly and transparently about the expectations and capabilities of each person. However, the metaverse could enhance the ability of everyone to continuously move toward a shared goal. Last year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Lower Saxony, Germany, piloted workshops in a virtual environment designed and constructed by PwC. In the resulting study, participants wearing VR headsets found the metaverse process far more agile and efficient than videoconferencing, and their sense of closeness with colleagues rose by 58%.

    Customized virtual offices may have a unique role in meeting the agile ideal, where every person on the team, including the product manager, has an equal opinion. But you don’t have to wait for this tech to go mainstream to experience the benefits of agile. The key is to give teams clear visibility into project roadmaps and identify where and why teams are not escalating issues promptly.

    Drive value from being fully present

    The daily “stand-up” is the most important aspect of the popular agile scrum framework. Teams get 15 minutes of daily face time, and it must be quick and easy: Here’s what a person did yesterday, this is what they’re doing today, and these are their “blockers” (obstacles). The team operates as equals, while the single point of contact — the scrum master — can assist in making priority decisions.

    But when teams lose face-to-face time in digital collaborative spaces, they lose the stand-up. Before, if someone stated a blocker, the entire team would be present to discuss a way around it. This system was designed to allow agile teams to solve problems on the spot. The challenge for remote teams is retaining the same speed of agile in an environment where people often aren’t as engaged.

    When the metaverse comes around, “standing up” will again become possible through avatars and a virtual scrum board. Until then, managers need to encourage open communication and ensure the right individuals are empowered to make decisions. I also suggest demonstrating to people, not just telling them, that mistakes are learning opportunities in a blameless culture.

    Break down silos virtually

    If a virtual workspace is well-designed with optimized visibility, teams may find themselves naturally drawn towards breaking down silos through open, transparent communication. That means evaluating whether the team can keep track of what the problems really are as the market shifts, as well as looking at the team’s execution style.

    Begin to experiment with this approach by ensuring that people are not left to tackle problems alone. That is when they tend not to escalate, and everything slows down. If you are not already using daily stand-ups, use these sprint sessions to allow the entire team to know the tasks, the problems, and how the problems might be blocking individuals from completing the tasks.

    People need to feel confident owning their decisions because businesses don’t have the luxury of time anymore. As we head into our brave new future, having all components of a virtual workplace reflect change in real-time will bring everyone up to speed and leverage the values of simulated face-to-face interactions.

    Related: The Metaverse Has Definitely Lost Steam — But Is It Dead?

    Paving the way for confident decision-making

    In an enterprise metaverse environment, asking if everyone is in the room can once again be asked more literally — enhanced by audio-spatial technology that means the person to your right really sounds like they are to your right. Comfort with conflict and confident decision-making may prove easier with everyone more present. To leaders considering experimenting with metaverse platforms, McKinsey suggests adopting a test-and-learn mindset. Start small by integrating select elements, such as virtual whiteboards or project rooms, into your existing workflows to not only see how your team responds — but to gauge the potential of this technology. Where digital collaboration tools pose challenges, an enterprise metaverse promises to help companies build highly engaged remote teams that are quick on their feet and able to swiftly work toward a profitable MVP.

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    Mary Hubbard

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