A friend of mine told me that AI feels less like drinking from a firehose and more like a firehose is spraying water into her basement while she’s sitting in her office, trying to get things done the old way. She can hear the sound of the gushing water. She knows it’s coming for her. But she doesn’t know what to do about it. 

Most print service providers I speak with are not like this friend; they don’t have their heads in the sand. PSPs are highly motivated to capitalize on AI's possibilities, especially when facing increased operating costs, decreased sales, and ongoing labor shortages. They have spent the last couple of years learning about AI, understanding how it can help their business, and experimenting with it. Still, many aren’t sure they’re fully leveraging AI or have run into roadblocks that have stalled their progress as they adopt this emerging tech.

Just like any new technology, AI brings significant opportunities and serious new challenges. This blog post addresses some of the most common questions I got when I reached out to thINK members about their AI challenges.

Question 1: How do I get my team excited about exploring AI? Some areas of the business have been quicker to adopt AI tools than others. 

This is totally normal. Appetite for newness, change, and experimentation varies from person to person and can be very dependent on their role. People in roles that require some level of risk aversion (think Legal and HR) may be more critical of new technologies — and that’s a good thing. We need those critical human brains in the room when we’re talking about AI!

Start by encouraging each team to identify three to five time-consuming, manual processes they’d like to improve or speed up. These will be quick wins where AI can deliver value that the team will appreciate. Tell them to choose just one thing from the list and find a way to automate it with AI. You might even tell them to use AI features in your existing software, to eliminate the barrier of having to learn a new tool. Pilot this AI automation for a set period of time, and define your metric for success up front. At the end of the pilot, speak with your team about their experience. I’m willing to bet that if they can see the impact on their day-to-day lives, they’ll be more likely to try additional AI tools and features. 

Question 2: I understand how generative AI can help with things like emails and meeting notes, but how can AI help with print operations? 

So many ways! Here’s a short list of ways I know thINK members are using AI today: 

Template Creation

AI tools can analyze past designs and recommend new templates or new versions, freeing up designers for more creative work. For direct mailers who do a lot of version testing, this can save a ton of time. 

Enhanced Personalization

AI can be used to analyze vast amounts of customer data (both structured and unstructured) to create highly personalized print materials. Learn more about how the combination of AI and variable data printing is supercharging personalization.

Optimized Workflows

Use AI to validate inputs, detect errors in real time, and optimize job routing and scheduling. AI can also aid in machine setup and color management by analyzing and learning from previous jobs.

More Efficient Production Schedules

Because AI can quickly summarize large datasets, printers are using it to optimize their production schedules, leading to better press utilization.

Question 3: What Should I Be Doing to Ensure Data Privacy and Security When Using AI?

You are absolutely right to make data privacy and security a top priority when evaluating AI solutions. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind: 

Ensure Compliance with Industry Standards

Many commercial AI platforms and tools are compliant with the standards by which you’d judge any tool, like SOC 2 and HIPAA. This may come with the platform’s higher-tiered paid plans, so do your homework to be sure you’re investing in the right plan for your needs. You will also want to make sure that the AI platform is not using your data to train its models, which may be an option you have to select in the settings of your account.

Consider Local AI Deployment

A more secure option is to run large language models on your own servers, which ensures that sensitive data never leaves your environment and is not exposed to third-party AI providers. Even with a local deployment, however, you will still need processes in place to ensure that sensitive information is redacted before data is sent to the large language model. 

Implement an AI Policy

I made the case back in February that every print service provider needs an AI policy, and my position hasn’t changed. In fact, I think it’s even more important — now that seemingly every piece of software we use has AI features — to set clear expectations for your entire company about how AI should and should not be used. I’d also recommend establishing an AI oversight team to monitor usage and ensure protocols are followed.

Human Oversight Is Key

Regardless of the security measures you implement, humans must oversee AI functions to review outputs for accuracy. AI is not perfect! 

Question 4: My biggest headache is <blank>. Can AI help? 

The short answer: Yes, AI can likely help with your biggest headache. Headaches differ from PSP to PSP, but one I heard a few times was estimating, so let’s look at how AI can help ease your estimating troubles. 

Collaborative Quote Creation

We covered how AI can analyze and learn from past jobs. Put this to work by collaborating with AI on new quote requests. An AI agent (out of the box or custom) can compare the new request to a knowledge base of past jobs to generate an estimated cost. You can even ask it for a confidence score. This provides a starting point, saving human estimators considerable time.

Request for Proposal Automation

RFPs often involve complex questionnaires, but you can save time by uploading the questions to an AI agent and generating answers based on previously completed RFPs. 

Streamlined Communications

The estimating process often involves bidding the same types of jobs over and over. AI can help draft boilerplate content for humans to customize. It can also create charts or visualizations from complex ideas, such as timelines or cost options.

Continuous Improvement

By inputting feedback from proposals or bids back into the AI system, you can continuously improve your estimates, making the process more efficient — and accurate — over time.

24/7 Quoting

Many PSPs are already using AI-powered chatbots to provide 24/7 customer support, but they can also provide instant quotes if you allow them to train on past estimates and job data. 

AI technologies are evolving rapidly, so if you do feel like your basement is filling up with water, you’re not alone. Many AI experts, even those at the forefront, are still learning new things every day. Stay informed by registering for webinars, attending conferences (both within and outside the print industry), and reading relevant materials. Most importantly, test! It’s not what you know about AI but what you do with it that will give you the competitive advantage.  

As Managing Director of Client Services at Trekk, Emilee Christianson works with clients to develop strategic marketing plans and craft measurable programs that span print, web, social, mobile, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. She leverages her expansive knowledge of marketing tactics to lead creative and technical teams and create communications programs that help B2B marketers meet their business objectives.