Miami tech startup Purple Horizons uses artificial intelligence to create services for small businesses. NBC6 Reporter Sophia Hernandez
More than three quarters of Americans are using artificial intelligence platforms in their day to day lives and they may not even know it.
The more interesting trend is how AI could impact our work and businesses.
The headquarters of Purple Horizons may look like your everyday office, but that’s far from the truth.
Gianni Dalerta and Ralph Quintero call themselves "tinkers."
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They are just two guys determined to find new and progressive ways to help clients and businesses, and their new tool is artificial intelligence.
“This opened up a whole slew of avenues for us in terms of how we worked with businesses,” explained Quintero.
They use AI with voice-automated technology, which is basically using AI to talk.
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“We have generated hotlines for businesses where someone can call and interact with a smart concierge 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it gives businesses an opportunity to really put themselves out there and better serve their customers,” said Quintero.
They’ve also used AI to help with corporate events, creating a virtual avatar named BIBI.
“We instructed BIBI on how to interact in an event-moderator capacity. You have to segue the topics, you have to ask questions, you have to keep it interesting,” said Dalerta.
NBC6 put BIBI to the test. Sophia Hernandez introduced herself as a reporter and BIBI responded: “Great to have you Sophia, thanks for joining. Now let’s brainstorm some topics.”
The group spoke for roughly 10 minutes about a variety of topics. She asked questions and waited for our answers. She also jumped to each of the group members to keep the conversation flowing.
“We don’t know how she’s going to respond, she’s not programmed with preset questions or anything,” Quintero said.
The realism, likeability, and ease of communicating with and utilizing AI is why National University and Pew Research Center say 77% of companies are either using or exploring its use.
They include entrepreneurs like David Fano, whose company Teal uses AI to help individuals from the day they start working to the day they retire, specifically focused on resume building, LinkedIn and other job recruiting requirements.
“It would be way too time consuming to make a customized resume for every job. But with AI that becomes almost trivial, and it makes it really easy for people to shine and stand out, relative to the people who aren’t willing to make the effort to do it,” explained Fano.
These techies believe artificial intelligence is like a trusted employee or best friend, someone you can go back and forth with until your idea comes to fruition.
“It’s like a sketchbook, but with words,” said Dalerta. "Before, if I wanted to draw a picture or a logo, I had to do 20 different iterations of that logo so that I can figure out which one I wanted to use and kind of hone in. But with AI, I could create those 20 and then direct, I like that one, let’s go a little bit deeper.”
It’s also what they believe to be a superpower that’s available to everyone.
“If you are not playing with this technology, we don’t think it should replace what you are doing as a human being, but if you are not enhancing what you are doing as a human being with this technology someone else is going to do it and you are going to miss out,” Dalerta said.
However, there are many who are still skeptical to the use of AI.
Pew Research conducted a study where only 15% of Americans said they were more excited than concerned about the use of AI. That’s compared to 38% who are more concerned, and 46% who say they are an equal mix of both.
National University says 52% of employed individuals believe AI will take their jobs. That same study shows that by 2025 AI might eliminate 85 million jobs but create 97 million new ones.
And 83% of companies say that using AI in their business is a top priority.
“Anybody can interact with this stuff and build interesting things and enrich themselves, whereas the other stuff was more challenging. If you wanted to get into crypto you must be a programmer, you have to know your stuff,” Dalerta said.
According to the same research, 33% of consumers say they use AI. But in reality, 77% of us use AI, and we may not even know it.
You use AI in Photoshop, or you give it a few key words and it can make a song about yourself.
It can also be beneficial for those who have a bright idea for a side hustle or passion project.
“I love word games, I play Wordle every morning and I had this concept for a word game for years. And I just had this PowerPoint deck, it was a Canva deck, with a concept for the game and I fed that into AI, and I asked if it could help me create an app out of this," Quintero said. “And it actually did, it gave me all the steps I should follow, the game flow, and it gave me a prototype within an hour of the game. As of this morning there are dozens of people playing it and I am having the time of my life with it, and it’s something I created thanks to AI.”
The Pew Research Center conducted a study last year to see how many of us can actually point out what’s AI and what’s not.
Only 30% of Americans could point out all of the ways AI is displayed in our daily lives, like through wearable watches, chatbots, or even music recommendations.
