AI is a hot topic among entrepreneurs right now. It’s a fantastic technology that makes the previously impossible possible. In the last few weeks, I’ve talked to several founders who want to use AI in their companies. They’re thinking along the lines of chatbots and other features. This struck me as odd because it’s not clear if these things would add value to their customers.

After I left one of these conversations, I realized that the founder is building technology in search of a problem. To his credit, he knows that AI is powerful and can change his company and benefit its customers. But he just doesn’t know enough about the technology to determine how to apply it in his business. So, he defaulted to building what he’s seen be successful at other companies: chatbots and the like.  

Companies exist to solve problems. By solving problems, they add value to customers, and customers pay them for that value. If a technology doesn’t help a customer materially or help you help the customer, what’s the point of using the technology in your business?

AI is powerful, and all entrepreneurs should explore and use it in their businesses. I think the best approach to adopting it, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is to pinpoint a problem that’s painful for you or your customers—one that you can’t solve or that’s painfully expensive to solve. Then, search the numerous AI tools for one that can help you solve that problem. Evaluating each AI tool to understand whether it can do that will expose the limitations of each tool and the technology as a whole. This process will accelerate your AI learning and help you get comfortable with the technology.

This approach will help you create a better solution for yourself or your customers and give you a deeper understanding of AI capabilities that you can use to solve future problems.