AI is a trend that we do not foresee going away any time soon. Luckily, using AI for your business endeavors can save you time, help with your marketing campaigns, and even increase your revenue. If you haven’t already — it’s time to jump on the bandwagon!

We recently hosted a webinar with Christian Watts, founder and CEO of Magpie Travel, who walked us through how AI can benefit those working in the tourism industry. Below we have answers to a few of the questions your peers asked live. 

Watch the full webinar, AI Tools to Manage and Grow Your Business, to learn more from the entire presentation and Q&A.

Should you pay for a subscription model?

Ultimately, this depends on where you are in your AI journey. If you are new to using AI, simply playing around with the free version will suffice. For instance, you can ask it to write a detailed blog about your business (“Write a blog about the animals you can see on a catamaran tour in San Diego, CA in August.”)

However, Christian believes that there are reasons to start using the paid version, like gaining the ability to generate AI images and videos. He sums it up by saying, “if you’re just starting out, start on the free version. As you start to learn how it works, you’ll probably want to upgrade to gain the added power and value.”

Pro Tip: To get around paying a subscription fee, Christian suggests that you ask ChatGPT to write a blog post. Then, go to bing.com/create (which is free to use) and ask it to make images based on the blog.

Does using AI-generated content on my website influence my Google organic search ranking or my domain authority score?

The short answer is no. If you are publishing quality, useful content, Google does not penalize you for using AI-generated copy or images. That said, if you start publishing 4,000 blogs a day, they will penalize you for spamming. 

For specific information on Google’s AI stance, confirm your usage with their principles.

Do AI tools save the data and sensitive information you put into them?

Of course, submitting private info about yourself or your business online can be a fear. However, Christian was adamant that ChatGPT and other tools do not exist to steal your data. 

He notes that “[OpenAI] has read ten trillion words for the engine to exist. Every word you give to it is diluted by that ten trillion. In other words, it cannot remember word for word what it reads.” 

Can AI create videos as well as images? Can you give it an image to make it better?

AI can currently make videos, however, they are typically short. Christian suggests playing around with runaway.ai for video content. 

As for making images better, he believes that AI can eventually replace Photoshop. For example, you can input a photo of a bike shop and ask it to make the gray sky blue or the grass greener. At this point it can essentially act as an easy-to-use photo editing tool. 

How does one not “drown” in all these AI options? Where do you start besides ChatGPT? 

As someone who is not endorsed by ChatGPT, Christian does say that it is common consensus that it is the best. He notes that a lot of programs out there today are built on top of ChatGPT, meaning that developers build specific tools on top of the original ChatGPT software. 

For instance, you can pay for an AI blog building service. While it is built on the ChatGPT bot, what you will get from this other tool is better organization. You can separate your blogs into folders as well as gain help to publish, copy, and store them. 

Pro Tip: If you are looking for another option to use outside of ChatGPT, Christian recommends looking for reviews on YouTube. There are plenty of people who are consistently supplying their in-depth reviews of new (and old!) AI tools on the market. 

Learning more about AI can immensely improve your business operations. That is why we’ve created several new resources to help you improve your usage of this technology. Watch the entire Christian Watts webinar, listen to our podcast featuring Peter Syme, or catch up on any of the below AI resources.