I don’t. I haven’t found a need for AI in my business for the following reasons:
Research: AI is only as good as its training data, and there is a lot of misinformation on the internet. Part of my service is to provide trusted resources and information, and I can’t trust the reliability of AI-sourced data. It takes as long to vet the AI-sourced data as to do my own educated research, so I’d rather do my own research.
Writing: I’m the daughter of an English teacher, and many in my family are professional writers. Writing in English comes easy to me and other than the standard spelling and grammar check, I don’t need AI to do the writing.
Images: Good images are integral to my written reports. I take many photos in the field and select the best, then mark them up to support my observations. When providing tree protection specifications for construction, I mark up a site plan to show the location of fencing, trunk wrap, root buffer, hand-digging, etc. Again, this is based on field observations – going to the site and viewing it in 3D from several perspectives. I don’t see how AI could assist in this work.
Communication: Ultimately, my job is not to show how educated I am. My job is to communicate technical information in an easily understandable way to a non-technical audience. This is through plain language and useful images. I have to visit the site in person and communicate with the relevant people about the purpose and use of the report. I don’t see a use for AI in this.
I know that some of my colleagues use AI and no judgement on them, but AI doesn’t have the necessary skills and technical expertise to be of any use to me. Even the standard spell-check doesn’t recognize many common horticultural terms. If new forms of horticulture-science-specific AI should come out, I may reconsider, but for now:
When you hire me, you get me, not AI.