How are you using AI to improve your business? What are your biggest questions?

[sargos]

👋 Hi folks! My name is Sam and I’m part of the team working on Square AI, which is now available in open beta to all owner accounts in the US. 

As we continue to build AI capabilities into Square and bring you resources to help you get the most out of AI, we’re curious to hear: 

What are some of your biggest questions about using AI to improve your business? 

What are some of the biggest unlocks you’ve found by using AI so far?

[HC_Charlie]

Thanks for posting this @sargos , I've always been very strongly anti-AI but the more I use some tools, the more I'm warming up to the benefits. One of the things I've been using AI for recently is generating text for outreach marketing emails. I'm prompting with a few guiding questions from the website, and then it generates text to use in my marketing emails.

I've also started to explore using AI to find prospective customers by searching geographic areas based on my ideal customer profile. Some results were promising but this is still not great.

I'm looking forward to hearing about how Square can help the Community use AI to expand and grow our businesses!

[doc_choc]

Hi @sargos AI for me has to be almost invisible, doing those tasks that AI can do but without me knowing its doing it. If I have to instruct it too much, if its not intuitive then it may be a little too cumbersome to use. 

We have used AI for blog generation but I have read that AI will be changing the way searches will be conducted. It would be nice if AI could look at my website, for example realize that our business sells chocolate, we sell all year round, peak times are Christmas, Easter, Mothers Day etc, we sell dark, milk and white chocolate, we have chocolate for suitable for vegan diets and then have AI generate the information be it 'blog' content in the format that the new AI searches will like to see. Take the human out the equation. AI should know what AI searches would like to see and in what format. 

[JUYBoutique20]

I like to use AI for my marketing campaigns.  It helps me get my words together in the way that I want to portray them.  I've got to keep playing with it to get the full capabilities of it though. 

[JessPoynter]

@sargos AI would be beneficial for projecting /comparing trends to then automate marketing campaigns. Or, take a general pulse of what other beauty providers are offering and then I could (if I wanted) update my offerings to be competitive. 

AI could also be great to automate support so that y'all dont have to tag us in things that might be helpful for another seller. 

I feel like AI could also be beneficial for you all on the back end as a way of culling what we all talk about in discussions so that often talked about feature requests and the like could be attended to. 

[perkits]

Not currently using, but interested to learn. We would probably use it for marketing campaigns to start with. I'm excited to see where AI will take use with Square.

[bonny]

While I recognize AI is decimating my field (art and illustration), I also recognize there are benefits to using it within a limited scope.  I use it on a regular basis to help catch spelling and grammar oops when I write.  It's saved me from what would have been some pretty embarrassing mistakes. 

I have also used it to help me write a more compelling newsletter.  I'll admit, that really surprised me.  Or maybe I wasn't expecting much.  It actually had some good suggestions.  Of course, there was a bunch of suggested text I deleted as the wording clearly would not have been from me. 

I also dabbled a little with product descriptions.  I'll admit, overall, I found them helpful.  Since I'm a solopreneur, I don't have a team to bounce ideas off of or anyone to assign these tedious tasks to.  In that respect, AI has been fun to play with.  Sure, I could do it all myself but I've found what I have used has saved me time and given me inspiration to take things in a direction I hadn't thought of.  

One other thing about AI, I never thought or expected that I would have to explain to anyone that I create my own original artwork.  I am now asked how much of my designs I did and how much is AI.  It's a sign of the times I suppose, but it's also disappointing and frustrating that the public already can't tell the difference.  At my farmer's markets, I talk myself hoarse throughout the day telling folks I have a four year degree in fine art and yes, these are my original designs. 

Bonny Wagoner

www.bonnywagoner.com

@bonnywagoner

[sugarlab]

I use AI to help me formulate copy for emails and marketing. I also use it to help me organize my thoughts. 

[rjonin]

I'm using AI a lot.

Of course, I use the big dog chatGPT, but I've been using AI for a while. I used Jasper(pre-chatGPT) to help with social captions and when writing product descriptions for other small businesses.  In addition to chatGPT,  I use claude, google notebookLM(which is the coolest 'ish. It summarizes documents in podcast style) and perplexity. There're many others that I've tried.  I also use Canva's built in AI to create images, it's pretty good and has steadily evolved.  

My personal use cases for AI include subject matter research, refine my marketing and generic things like, "tell me more about my natal chart."

Since, I consider myself a heavy user of AI, I've become increasingly aware when I see AI being used and it hasn't been customized. I'm taking an AI prompt engineering course; because 'garbage in equals garbage out.'

I love that idea of Square AI. I  desire less friction in all business processes and so do customers.

"Hey square, where do you see profit erosion in my business? Use my historical revenues, service timing and client retention. Tell me 3 ways to increase my profit margin by 10% in Q3 and Q4 without increasing my business operating hours."

Thanks!

p.s. AI was not used to write the post. There may be human typographical errors.😂

[MudFire_Dex]

For us, the benefit doesn't outweigh the cost. Water use is important to us, and too crucial to use in this way for server cooling. We just don't have the need for the inaccurate info either. I can empathize with those who need to use it for listings, etc but we don't really sell online. For ceramics, technical info is far from being correct and in many cases is dangerous because it misstates temperature and firing information. Fortunately our business is delightfully in person and tangible ❣️✨ so we can rely on touch and personal interactions to explain the mechanics of making pottery.

[CareyJo]

❤️

[Donnie-M]

@sargos I use it to talk to and cry at night about dealing with irrational employees who leave tea nozzles open when brewing tea...wait...ignore that.

I have been using it to quick answer emails, to work on item descriptions, and I have even sunk so low as to generate some images as stock photography in a pinch.

[isabelle]

LOL @Donnie-M 

[CareyJo]

🤣

[homeprogreen]

Honestly I don’t use AI for business and don’t really plan to. I can see where it might benefit if I did email marketing or sold online though. I did participate in the Square AI Beta but it really didn’t seem to work as well as expected and constantly provided wrong information. I am old and it’s just easier to do things myself, takes me longer but at least I know it’s right when I am done 

[CareyJo]

I'm glad I'm not the only one wanting to avoid it!  I feel like a loner... lol

[homeprogreen]

lol. You’re not a loner. There’s a lot of us that just prefer to avoid it as much as possible 

[BofBArtStudio]

I use AI very often.  Sometimes I have a full conversation about a challenge I am working through or an idea that I have that I want to determine if it is feasible.  

I have used ChatGPT to refine our systems documentation and help organize it.

I have used ChatGPT to refine our Team Roles documentation.

I have used ChatGPT to help me identify and compare our revenue and expense projections based on our industry and to create a 6 month growth roadmap for our Clay Studio.

"Create a 6-month growth roadmap for Burst Of Butterflies Create & Paint Studio.  Include strategies for customer acquisition, retention, and market expansion"

I have used ChatGPT to help create catchy subject lines for our weekly newsletter.

"Help me with a subject line for our newsletter that announces that summer is almost here and creative fun is on the menu"

I have used Square AI to give me totals for each location for each month on all transactions that are Private Parties.  (Private Parties always have a VIP Room item in them)

"Display a list of transactions, in order by location first and  date second, for April 2025, that include the item VIP Room"

I have asked Square AI to compare May 2025 vs May 2024 labor vs revenue and break it down by location

"show me total revenue and total labor cost comparison for May 2025 vs May 2024 and break it down by location"

And then a follow up question of:

"What items contributed most to the increase in revenue?"

I also asked ChatGPT

"where is the best place around to take clay wheel throwing classes?"

😁

And was very happy to see that Burst Of Butterflies Create & Paint Studio came up as a detailed first result.  🦋

[Doran]

I use AI to help refine my marketing calendar and messages.  

I also use it to look at my analytics like a business consultant would.  It helps find places I can improve or let go of.  

[SVLFever]

Hello @sargos ,

We have embraced AI where we can here in our Family Entertainment Center business model, but the practical uses have been somewhat limited.

Between my GM and I we routinely will use either Google AI or ChatGPT to;

• Give us some marketing ideas
• To write marketing letters
• To do some industry research.
• How to write formulas in Excel to make our lives a bit easier.

We have used Square's AI to

• Monitor past sales of certain items
• To try to estimate future purchases
• To monitor labor
• To monitor tips

I was  pleasantly surprised to find some labor hours trending thanks to the Square AI last week.  I was able to have the Square AI convert it into a graph that I sent on to all of managers here (as well as some at QubicaAMF) that was very instightful/helpful in identifying some wasted payroll cost.  I'm hoping that the AI will be intelligent enough to help predict ahead at some point.

As I was explaning to @alexschiff  the other day, it's somewhat difficult to try and think of things to ask the Square AI to research for me, as I have been in business for over 30 years and have always had to do it myself.   I think once I get to a full year worth of data in Square then some things will be much easier for me to use the Square AI to research.    I like that the Square AI comes up with some suggestions on what to search for, as I think that is helpful in getting started.  Now that we can follow up a bit more accurately, that helps as well.

Please let me know if you have specific questions or would like further information.

[rtfulk]

@sargos We use AI extensively in our business and personal life. We use it to help compose our blog and generate images for it. We use it in email and marketing campaigns, item descriptions. We use Square AI for sales comparisons, sales trends.

1. For our blog. A lot of people claim it's cheating or you are not really writing if you have AI to write it for you, but I disagree. I know exactly what I want to say and content to use. My problem is I don't know exactly how to put it in words that would be interesting for people to read. AI can take my bullet points ad compose them in a friendly engaging way, the same way for instance a speech writer would do. I also use it to generate an image for our blog. I have a theme I like to follow, for example the 4th of July, "make cartoon style drawing of diversified kids enjoying a 4th of july picnic, playing games, with fireworks in the background and of course incorporate our logo.

2. Email & marketing. AI can generate a short energetic campaign, something that will get the customer excited and also give them FOMO on an item. I could never come up with some the emails AI comes up with.

3 Item Descriptions. This is probably what I use AI for the most. There are days I put 30-50 items items, it use to be a brain drain not to mention time consuming trying to come up with 50 different item descriptions that doesn't sound like the same rehashed description over and over. 

This is where I want Square to step up and allow us to sign in with our ChatGPT login. I use to use the item description in Square when putting up items. Here is the problems with Square's item descriptions.

1. It crashed a lot. I spent more time re-entering the prompts that I could've just wrote it myself.
2. It uses basically the same description over and over. It's like a form letter, it says the same thing, but just enters a different name each time.
3. There is no way to train it with prompts. I have ChatGPT trained with prompts, I can just type one word or 3 letter phrase and ChatGPT knows what to replace it with. For instance if I type ELA ChatGPT knows to replace that with "Elastic pull up waist". It also knows if put Snowman, pumpkin, ghost..etc. that is a seasonal prompt and at the bottom of the description it will put "No return on seasonal items".
4. This is how Squares descriptions needs to be. I would love to not have to exit the Square description page, go to ChatGPT copy the description and then paste it back in the Square description. I would be a huge time saver.

Square AI

Square AI has come a long way since it started. When each of our fairs end the last thing we would do is print a sales summary for the whole show, we would have receipt paper that would put a CVS pharmacy receipt to shame. 🙂 Now with AI it can generate a file for us and we can save that file into our digital sales book. Our digital sales book is like a diary, everyday we journal, the weather, the crowd, what sold the best, what didn't..etc then at the end of the fair we do a recap journal and attach the sales summary to that. That way we have access to written information and sales. It comes in handy when you start preparing for the fair for the next year.

We also use square AI for daily/hourly sales comparisons, we like to compare our hourly sales from the same day previous year, it helps us manage breaks and lunch hours. 

We also have been asking Square AI to give us a sales trend of the upcoming fair, it's pretty close to the +/- percentage.

For personal use.

Have you ever tried this? We were recently on vacation and I asked ChatGPT this.  Be a travel guide for me. I am spending 6 hrs. in this city and would like to do a walking tour, starting at this point and ending up at the same point. We are interested in points of interest, historical churches, museums and include 30-60 minutes for a lunch, today we would like to sample popular local food.

You would be amazed at what you get in return.

Another thing I do, A few weeks before we went on vacation I would start a conversation with ChatGPT and ask about the city we were going to, find out about the history, just carry on a normal conversation. You would be amazed at what you can learn.

Sorry it's long, but that is a sampling of how we use AI.