Cooking with AI
Ann Swanson – Idaho SBDC | Sep 16, 2025
I wrote my first article on AI and small business in May. Fast forward four months, and our Small Business Development Center staff here in Southeast Idaho has added AI elements to our consulting almost daily. With AI use spreading quickly in the small business world, there continue to be new ideas and, more importantly, new cautions.
Instead of “learning” AI, I more accurately warmed up to it in the spring. In the past few months, I have — to continue the metaphor — started “cooking” with it. AI has helped many of my recent clients, especially for market research. I have asked ChatGPT about competitors for a landscaping business, found price-setting data for an Airbnb owner, and I actually cooked some lentil soup from an AI recipe.
The market information was excellent. The soup wasn’t great. Since AI is still far from perfect, it is important that small businesses proceed with some cautions in mind.
Client confidentiality: Most businesses keep client data, and this data should remain private. It is tempting (and probably smart) to use AI to look for patterns in client activity, map clients by geography or otherwise pull information for a mailing list, etc.
However, once client names and information are loaded into AI, all that data becomes part of the unfathomable amount of information that all AI systems analyze for others. If you want to work with customer data, keep it in-house or remove all identifiers before using AI for analysis.
Business privacy: The same goes for AI analysis of your own financial records. AI can make excellent cash flow and cost-cutting recommendations based on financial records, but take everything off the spreadsheets that might link the numbers directly to your business.
You get what you pay for: Free AI tools will give you results, but their information won’t be as valuable, as reliable or as fast as a paid AI subscription. You will likely be frustrated with a free model if you try to do the analysis I describe above.
On the lighter side, here are some ideas for leveraging AI to improve your business life:
Learn a prompt writing formula. There are many out there with acronyms to help you remember them e.g., C.A.R.E., T.R.A.C.E. and C.R.A.F.T.
C.A.R.E. stands for context, ask, rules, example. Tell AI what the context is: “I have a snow cone truck in Southeast Idaho.” Ask AI the question: “Where are some events I could attend in this area during the summer months?” Then give AI the rules for answering: “All these events should be outdoors during daylight hours, weekdays only.” Give AI an example: “Look for events like Pocatello’s Revive @ Five concert series.”
Use AI to ask how to use AI. For example, if you want to sell your business, you can ask AI what information you would need to give it in order to receive a good valuation estimate back from AI.
Help AI read your website. Websites have relied on search engine optimization for years. Now, artificial intelligence optimization is quickly replacing the term SEO. AIO isn’t as complex or difficult as some service providers would have you think.
There are several free ways to help your website be more AI searchable, the easiest of which is to create a frequently asked questions page. Update these questions monthly, and share them widely on your social channels. Others include adding a tool called a “schema” through your website hosting platform. A schema helps AI categorize your information and understand the structure and relevance of your content.
If you haven’t tried AI yet, please start. You can try a recipe search (“lentil soup”), travel planning (“hikes near Boise”) or better yet, ask AI to solve a business problem (“Can you help me improve my job listing to get better applicants?”).
The Small Business Development Center can help your business learn to leverage AI — whether you’re using ChatGPT, Gemini or another product. We can help you write effective prompts, identify AI tools that simplify daily tasks and raise awareness about risks and best practices.
The SBDC is taxpayer-funded to provide no-cost consulting and low-cost training to any small business. Ann Swanson is the regional director of the Small Business Development Center at the Idaho State University College of Business at 208-282-4402 or swanann@isu.edu.
By Ann Swanson
Ann Swanson is the regional director of the Small Business Development Center at Idaho State University’s College of Business. The Small Business Development Center is taxpayer funded to provide no-cost consulting and low-cost training to help business owners grow and thrive. If your business needs help with any aspect of business ownership/management, take advantage of our free consulting and training by reaching Swanson at 208-282-4402 or swanann@isu.edu.
