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HONG KONG, CHINA - APRIL 12: A human-like robot is seen at Hanson Robotics, a robotics and artificial intelligence company focused on creating human-like robots, in Hong Kong, China on April 12, 2023. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Anadolu Agency via Getty Images You are a small manufacturer. You're not Amazon and you're not Toyota. You don't have robots crawling over your facilities and you don't have hundreds of millions to spend on automation. You weren't born yesterday either. You know that, like all new tech, AI is still in its 1.0 version and you're not going to risk your business on immature and untested applications. And yet you can also see where things are going: AI will certainly have a dramatic impact on your business in the not too distant future, timeline unknown. So, for now, do you do nothing? No, you can do something. You can start leveraging AI in your manufacturing business. Here are a few ways how. Sign on to an AI Assistant. This year it will be critical that you and your senior and mid-level managers subscribe to one or two of the main AI Assistant players - ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Perplexity or Grok. There are many others, but these are the leaders. None are perfect, but then again who is? No document, agreement, bid, proposal, quote or other correspondence should leave your company without first being uploaded to your AI Assistant for comment and advice. Train your people to use these tools to create new policies first before having them reviewed by your attorneys and experts. Connect these tools to your internal data - OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Teams, Gmail - so that you can search and get answers about your company's information. Use it for research. Converse with it about your business. Ask for advice. You will be smarter, get better answers and be more productive when you lean into a good AI Assistant. Lean into Microsoft or Google's office tools. Chances are your company runs on either Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace. Each has their own AI tool - Copilot (Office) and Gemini (Google). Hire a consultant from LinkedIn or a similar site and get your entire staff trained on these capabilities. They've come a long way. Use these AI tools to more quickly create presentations, transcribe and summarize online meetings, translate calls in different languages, write emails, analyze spreadsheets and manage data. Not only will your staff be more productive, but they'll be less fearful of what this stuff does and be better at their jobs. MORE FOR YOU Build an internal solution for a manufacturer. Thanks to a proliferation of tools available now you can build your own AI system using your own data. You can create your own large language model, and synchronize data from your ERP, accounting, inventory management, HR and CRM systems into it. You can create your own agents and perform automated tasks with minimal human involvement. I wrote about the steps you need to take for Forbes. It’s not cheap. But it may be a good direction for your company. Buy an external solution for a manufacturer. Don't want to build something internally? You're not alone and you're not wrong. Doing that can be time consuming and expensive and probably out of your wheelhouse as a smaller company. Instead go to your manufacturing software providers that you use - Dynamics, Sage, Epicor, SAP, Acumatica, Infor, NetSuite or whatever. Have their product people walk you though all of the current and forthcoming AI functionality they’re including in their products to justify their ongoing monthly fees they charge. Figure out what makes the most sense for your business, adopt, clean up your data, then train your people and implement. Do this in small bites. Leverage your things. It's the age of the Internet of Things and most of the best AI advancements are hidden in the form of sensors on manufacturing equipment. Major suppliers from Boeing to Caterpillar to Hitachi have multiple sensors using AI on their engines and equipment which are monitoring everything from humidity to output to potential safety issues. Your suppliers are likely doing this too and you need to ask and understand. This data can now be sent wirelessly to a large language model where AI-leveraged applications can analyze, interrupt, remediate and notify. Consider also augmented reality devices like HoloLens, VisonPro and Ray Ban Meta which can help do inventory, identify safety issues and train employees. Use small drones in your warehouse from companies Gather AI, Vimaan, Verity, B GARAGE and Brightpick to cycle count inventory and monitor production. All of these technologies exist and have significantly come down in price. Finally, watch robotics. Only the big companies are investing in robotics, but that's quickly changing. Companies like Boston Dynamics, Atlas Robotics. ABB, FANUC, and KUKA are are using AI when creating robotic arms and human-like imitators that can move product, count inventory, pack and seal. Robotics shows worth attending include the International Robot Exhibition (IREX) in Japan and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Go to one of them so you can see all the new stuff that's real life and making their way to your manufacturing floor. Start thinking about where you can deploy robots in your facility and hone in on a few of the manufacturers of these devices that you like. I'm betting within two to three years you'll be investing. As a manufacturer, your business is going to be significantly changed by AI in the next few years. This is absolutely going to happen. Right now, the technology isn't ready for primetime. But as it approaches adolescence and then adulthood, no manufacture will be able to compete without doing all the things I have listed above. You've got about two to three years to prepare. You should start now. 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