Steven believes that by treating AI as an assistant to tackle some of the store’ s mundane tasks, retailers are free to focus on more effectively leading their team and fulfilling the heart of their business— the ministry.
Getting Started Like any tool, it’ s important to familiarize yourself with the safety manual before use. When using AI, Steven suggests three main rules of safety.
1. Always avoid inputting any Private Identifying Information( PII). This includes social security numbers, passwords, account numbers and the like. Information is stored and used to generate future AI responses, and you don’ t want those details appearing in the results for another person’ s query. And like any cloud-based service, AI tools are susceptible to data breaches.
2. Treat AI chat like an unverified intern— they don’ t always get it right. Verify sources. Steven calls this the“ Berean Method”( Acts 17:11). Examine the facts to thoroughly validate all AI outputs.
3. Remember to turn off the AI model training setting. This step is crucial to protect proprietary or intellectual property from being exposed. Go to your AI tool’ s privacy settings and disable options like“ Improve the model for everyone” or“ Allow models to be trained on your data.”
So what type of information should you share with AI? You can help AI learn your voice and the heart behind what you do by uploading your store’ s newsletters, Facebook posts or promotional emails. To help improve AI’ s functionality, you can also share contextual information such as your store’ s location, products you carry, holiday or season. Sharing these details can help make data output more relevant to your business.
The key is to treat it as a supportive tool— not a replacement for people
Types of AI Tools You may already be familiar with ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that engages in human-like conversations, and have likely even used it to create script for a product video, compelling copy for a promotional email or a tagline for a Facebook post. But there are many other platforms available, and they are growing by the day. Some of the more popular AI tools for business include QuickBooks, Claude, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. If you are unsure what type of AI tool you need, most platforms offer a free option so you can start small, or ask other retailers what they are using and how it has helped them.