Ep. 16 | Molly Berg - Small Business AI Advisor

Molly Berg says small businesses can use AI for website creation, email management, scheduling, invoicing, customer tracking, and social media posts. She emphasizes that AI works best when it frees up time to focus on what business owners love about their work, like problem solving and working with people. She notes that AI can help with administrative tasks like reminding you to respond to emails.

“There are so many things it can do that I love the ways it has freed up time for me to be able to do the things that I love about my business and do less of the things that are really difficult for me.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg does not think every business needs to use AI. She mentions her business partner joked that park rangers don't need to be using AI. Berg believes AI is a tool people can choose to use if it helps them, not something everyone must adopt. She focuses on helping businesses that want to leverage it responsibly.

“When you have people that are out there literally saying everyone should be using AI, I just don't agree with that. It is a tool that you can use.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg recommends Claude over ChatGPT for most small businesses right now. She switched to Claude earlier this year when ChatGPT started incorporating advertisements. Berg trusts statements from the Anthropic CEO more than OpenAI's leadership and prefers Claude's token based monetization over ad supported models. She notes this recommendation could change as the industry evolves.

“For my business, pretty much work exclusively with people that are using Claude, and I suggest people to use Claude. That could change literally a month from now.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg explains that many people in the AI space are wary of advertisement based monetization because results might prioritize who paid to advertise rather than what is most helpful. While ChatGPT currently makes ads clear, Berg sees it as a concerning direction that influenced her switch to Claude, which uses usage limits and token based pricing instead.

“It could get dangerous if you're getting results back on something that you think are prioritizing and they're actually prioritizing who paid them to advertise.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg says AI generated flyers often look the same because people use them like templates without customization. She compares it to filling in a PowerPoint template versus taking that template and changing fonts, colors, and design to make it your own. When someone just tells AI to generate a flyer from two sentences, it produces generic AI slop that is easy to spot and frustrating to see.

“When you can tell it's made by AI, it is not fun to look at and it's immediately frustrating because it's a charged topic too. You don't want people to know when you're using AI generated stuff because they might already have negative feelings about it.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg recommends starting with your own vision and using AI to improve it, or working with someone who has design expertise and uses AI as a tool. She explains that designers who know their craft can use AI to create content that still looks human. She plans to hire a brand designer for her own business even though she knows they will use AI, because they will use it skillfully.

“I will use a designer at some point, because I trust them to use AI to create something that still looks human. Whereas I'm going to have an inability to use AI to create something that looks human, because I'm not a designer.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg says individual AI usage has a very small water footprint. Running 1,000 messages a day to AI is equivalent to less than 0.1 percent of your daily water usage, which is less than leaving the water running while brushing your teeth. The larger environmental impacts come from training AI models and running the infrastructure, not from individual messages people send.

“You can run 1,000 messages a day to AI, and it's equivalent to less than 0.1 percent of your daily water usage.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg reports that data center construction in some areas is causing foundation issues for nearby homeowners. She mentions seeing a video from Texas where explosives and construction work caused a hole in someone's ceiling. Insurance companies are denying coverage saying data centers are not covered, while data center operators claim the damage happened naturally.

“There are instances in which people's homes are having foundation issues. I saw one video where somebody's ceiling fell down because of the work being done in a data center.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg stopped posting her children online in any publicly accessible space because of AI generated imaging. She explains that online images of children are unfortunately being used to generate pornographic images of kids. If accounts are completely private and limited to people you know, it is less of an issue, but she personally decided the worst case scenario was not worth the risk.

“We have stopped posting our kids online because of AI generated imaging. A lot of online images of children are unfortunately getting used to generate pornographic images of kids.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg confirms that AI hallucinates, which means it says things very confidently that are completely wrong. She describes a lawsuit where a lawyer quoted a previous trial for legal precedent, but the trial did not exist because AI invented it. This happens because AI predicts what to say next based on word association, not because it has an answer bank of true information.

“AI hallucinates is what it's called. That's such a strange word to use. Yeah, they call it hallucinations when AI says something very confidently that is just wrong.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg keeps a couple slots open each week for a free one hour coaching session for small business owners. These sessions help business owners figure out whether and how they want to use AI. She also offers a full day service that includes pre work and post work to help businesses implement AI, with the goal that they can use it proficiently on their own afterward.

“I've started keeping a couple slots open per week for a free hour of coaching for small business owners.”Molly Berg

Molly Berg recommends leveraging AI in the hands of somebody who knows how to use it for your specific need. She used AI to code her own website faster as a software developer, but plans to hire a brand designer for her branding because designers know how to use AI to create something that still looks human. She believes the best approach is working with experts who use AI as a tool.

“I think that leveraging AI, but leveraging it in the hands of somebody who knows how to use it for the area that you're looking at is one of the best ways to do it.”Molly Berg