What AI Can Do for Your Business

By Colleen Keyworth

From inventory management to marketing, artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize your HVAC company

Imagine a world where many of the mundane, but important, parts of your HVAC business — such as email marketing, service schedules, even inventory management — are handled automatically by artificial intelligence. You don’t have to worry about them. They just happen.

That’s the potential, if not quite the current reality, of artificial intelligence. Any task you have to do more than one time a day or multiple times a week can be automated with the help of AI. AI has the chance to be one of the biggest changes to our industry since the internet came along in the mid-1990s. It could make us more efficient — and more profitable — than just about any other current tool. Tasks that used to take weeks could be done in hours. Paperwork that used to need hours might only take minutes.

And here’s the thing: AI isn’t science fiction. It’s here. Now. It’s probably already in your home or on devices you use every day. Think of the Siri digital assistant on your iPhone or Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant. More AI. Even search engines like Google that automatically complete your query are making predictions based on AI.

You may not realize it, but AI has also been part of HVAC service and construction for a while now. Google’s Nest thermostats (and other smart thermostats) have algorithms to learn when homes are empty and adjust the temperature to maximize efficiency. Sheet metal fabrication software from companies like Autodesk, Trimble and Procore Technologies uses AI to create takeoff drawings faster.

And AI can be great for marketing tasks. It can help you collect data on your customers, and then analyze it to figure out who’s in the market for a new furnace or whole-house air purifier. Plus it can help you draft a custom email or social media post to remind them it’s time to buy.

 

What is AI?

So what is artificial intelligence anyway? There’s a lot of definitions out there, but here’s one I like: Artificial intelligence gives machines the ability to think and learn like humans. For businesses, that means it offers the chance to enhance efficiency and profitability by supplementing human capabilities. The ability to mine through huge amounts of data in seconds rather than hours.

In addition to AI, you might have heard about a related term: artificial general intelligence or AGI. Still theoretical, researchers in this field are attempting to create programs that match or exceed human intelligence. AGI would allow computers to self-teach themselves and develop emotional intelligence. Think about the sci-fi movies “I, Robot” or “Blade Runner.” Used irresponsibly, some think it could lead to the end of human civilization. Basically, the plot of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

Relax. We’re not there yet, although who knows what’s going on in a super-secret government lab somewhere. Depending on who you listen to, we’re either very close or decades away from AGI. And some experts doubt it will ever happen. Either way, robots won’t be running the entirety of our HVAC service businesses anytime soon.

 

Welcome ChatGPT

If you ask many people to name an AI tool, odds are one of the most popular answers will be ChatGPT. The virtual assistant and chatbot was released to the public Nov. 30, 2022. In development for more than six years, it’s an example of “large language model” AI, since it was programmed on trillions of data points. It understands conversational language and can answer questions or prompts on almost any subject— though not always accurately, which we’ll get into later. It can assist users with tasks such as drafting emails, data analysis and even making business plans.

Those traits have made ChatGPT one of the most popular applications ever released, with around 200 million monthly users worldwide. In the almost two years since it debuted, it’s spurred numerous other technology companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft to either come out with their own generative AI programs or cut licensing deals with OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, to use its technology.

Most competitors have tried to set their programs apart from ChatGPT. For example, Google’s AI platform is known as Gemini. Unlike the standard version of ChatGPT, it can understand and respond to audio, video, text, images, and computer code.

Many of these programs are free, though most offer more detailed or faster prompt responses for users who purchase subscriptions. For example, only the paid Plus version of ChatGPT gives you access to OpenAI’s DALL-E AI image generator, which creates pictures and illustrations based on your instructions. And the data used in ChatGPT Plus is more accurate and updated. In general, the paid versions of these programs are well worth the investment.

Similar programs, although less popular than ChatGPT, include Claude, Jasper, and Microsoft Copilot, which is aimed at business users and uses OpenAI’s technology. Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI.

 

What Can AI Do Now?

The most fantastic predictions about AI sound like they’re straight out of a science fiction movie. We’re a ways from that, but artificial intelligence can help make your job easier today. Here are some ways AI can help with tasks at your HVAC company.

Data analysis: Even if AI isn’t ready to run your business (and maybe it never will be), it can help you explore data to make better business decisions. By inputting key information about your company, your customers and your sales, artificial intelligence can provide insights to help grow your business. Maybe it can help you decide when the right time is to expand your service area or offer new products.

Creating and emailing invoices: AI programs can help you with billing your customers. Not only can they help draft invoices, they can also schedule them so they land in customer inboxes at the right time. No more worrying you forgot to send one to a customer.

Automated sales and lead follow-up: Automate your lead process and sales follow-ups. AI can track lead information, call recordings, Zoom transcriptions and immediately write your follow-ups and begin a touchpoint funnel.

Candidate hiring and tracking: Do you dread sorting through resumes to find candidates to bring in for interviews? There are AI-based programs that sort, file and even contact top candidates for you. The final hiring decision should always be made by a human, however.

Employee tracking: Training, certifications, absences — AI can make all these routine but important details easier to keep tabs on. You’ll automatically know who’s on, who’s off, and who’s making their service or sales targets.

 

Watch Out for ‘Hallucinations’

As helpful a tool as AI can be, don’t forget that in its current form, AI is essentially artificial. It doesn’t have original thoughts or ideas. It takes existing content, rearranges it (sometimes), and gives it back to you.

It also makes stuff up. And that can get you in trouble. You might have heard about a couple of lawyers who used ChatGPT to do research for a legal brief. The chatbot suggested several relevant cases the firm could cite. The lawyers included the cases in their filing. Unfortunately for the law firm — and its client — the cases were fake, “hallucinated” by ChatGPT.

A judge fined the two lawyers and their law firm $5,000 for the mistake. The lesson? Don’t take what artificial intelligence tools say at face value. Verify the information and source before using it.

That leads to a related point: While ChatGPT and similar programs can help you in many parts of your business, don’t use what they create without extensive editing and rewriting. Because large language model AI programs scour the internet to create content based on your prompts, the results can be similar to someone else’s work. That can be considered plagiarism. Writers and artists have sued AI software makers, saying chatbots’ results are too close to their copyrighted work.

The courts will be hashing out what is and isn’t eligible for copyright in generative AI for a long time.

Editing and rewriting AI-generated content will also make it better align with your company, your values and your customers. Artificial intelligence is no substitute for the empathy, creativity and true insights that humancreated content can generate. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

None of these warnings should discourage you from experimenting with artificial intelligence, however. It’s another tool that can make you think in new ways and help grow your business. Remember that AI is already in the HVAC industry and its role will only increase.

So are you ready? Try out different platforms and tools, and see what might work for your business. But get comfortable, because AI isn’t going anywhere. And who knows where we’ll be in five or 10 years. At the rate things are going, AI could be doing things we can’t imagine.

Colleen Keyworth is director of sales and marketing at Online Access Inc., an HVACR web marketing company located in Michigan. Keyworth regularly trains contractors around the country and is recognized as an influential speaker and writer, sharing her insights on industry challenges, effective marketing strategies, and the significant role of women through various platforms, including podcasts and articles.

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