However, some businesses are rushing in, and as Ms Skidd shows, it can often create more work and costs than originally intended.
Certainly, that’s the experience of Sophie Warner, co-owner of Create Designs, a digital marketing agency in Hampshire in the UK.
In the last six to eight months, she seen a surge in requests for help from clients who have turned to AI for a quick fix, but have run into problems.
“Before clients would message us if they were having issues with their site or wanted to introduce new functionality,” says Ms Warner. “Now they are going to ChatGPT first.”
Ms Warner says this has led to clients adding code to their website that has been suggested by ChatGPT. This, she says, has resulted in websites crashing and clients becoming vulnerable to hackers.
She points to one client who, instead of manually updating their event page, which she says would have taken 15 minutes, instead turned to ChatGPT for easier instructions.
The error ultimately “cost them about £360 and their business was down for three days”.
Ms Warner says it also happens to larger clients too.
“We are spending more time educating clients on the consequences [of using AI].
“We often have to charge an investigation fee to find out what has gone wrong, as they don’t want to admit it, and the process of correcting these mistakes takes much longer than if professionals had been consulted from the beginning.”
Prof Feng Li, associate dean for research and innovation at Bayes Business School, says some businesses are too optimistic about what current AI tools can do.
He points out that AI is known to hallucinate – to generate content that is irrelevant, made-up, or inconsistent.
“Human oversight is essential,” he says.
“We’ve seen companies generate low-quality website content or implement faulty code that breaks critical systems.
“Poor implementation can lead to reputational damage and unexpected costs – and even significant liabilities, often requiring rework by professionals.”