Artificial intelligence has moved quickly from experimentation to everyday influence, shaping how people search, buy, communicate, and make decisions. This session helps participants step back and understand what has actually changed, what hasn’t, and why it matters for businesses today.

Rather than focusing on tools or trends alone, the session also explores the skills businesses need to navigate AI responsibly, including judgment, transparency, adaptability, and trust-building. Participants leave with a clearer understanding of where AI fits into real-world decisions and how to prepare for what comes next without fear or confusion.

Generative AI is transforming how content is created, from marketing copy to internal workflows. This foundational session is designed for small businesses that are curious about how AI can support their goals, but may be unfamiliar with how these tools actually work. No technical background is required. Participants are introduced to widely used platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini. They learn how AI can assist with everyday tasks, including drafting content, improving customer communication, organizing ideas, and increasing productivity.

The session also explores where human oversight remains essential, why transparency matters, and how responsible use helps protect accuracy, credibility, and customer trust. This course provides a strong baseline understanding of generative AI and is recommended before attending future sessions such as Harnessing AI for Small Businesses: Knowing What to Automate and What to Own, Being Found in the Age of AI: Search, Answer Engines, and Visibility, and AI Assistants in Practice: Designing Bots That Support, Not Replace, People.

AI can remove friction from many everyday business tasks, but not everything should be automated. This session helps small business owners and leaders understand where AI adds value and where human judgment, accountability, and relationships must remain in human hands.

Through practical examples, participants learn how to distinguish between tasks AI can assist with and responsibilities that should stay human-led. The focus is on using AI to support better decisions, reduce unnecessary workload, and strengthen trust with customers rather than replacing the human elements that matter most.

The way people find businesses is changing. Instead of typing into Google and scanning a list of links, more consumers are turning to AI tools that skip the list and go straight to the answer. This shift creates a new challenge for businesses. If your information is not structured for AI-powered “answer engines,” you risk becoming invisible at the moment decisions are made.

This session introduces Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and explains how AI-driven discovery works, why accuracy and transparency matter more than ever, and how businesses can position themselves to be found without

AI assistants are becoming more common in customer service, operations, and internal workflows. This session explores how businesses can design and use AI assistants in ways that enhance human work rather than replace it, keeping judgment, accountability, and trust firmly in human hands.

Participants examine real-world use cases, boundaries, and best practices for deploying assistants responsibly, including where automation adds value and where human involvement must remain central. The session reinforces the idea that AI should act as a support system, helping people work more efficiently without sacrificing context, credibility, or care.

Designed to be accessible for those with no technical background, this course introduces the practical capabilities of AI assistants and how they can be used to answer questions, provide information, assist customers, and support everyday tasks. Using ChatGPT as a hands-on tool, participants will build a simple chatbot during the session. Laptops encouraged!

Empowering Michigan Businesses Through AI & Data-Driven Insights.

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