Verizon is due to hold a graduation ceremony for participants in its Verizon Tech Empowerment Series today (16 July), the culmination of educational efforts for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) which Arvind Rajagopalan, associate VP and global head, told Mobile World Live was increasingly focused on AI.

The operator’s Small Business Digital Ready Programme provides SMBs with free access to educational courses, workshops, virtual or in-person networking opportunities and grants, all with the aim of helping the companies grow revenue and improve customer experience.

Rajagopalan said AI and generative AI (genAI) became added areas of focus about a year ago. “What we are doing here is really from an awareness and empowering standpoint and from a technology perspective.”

“We’re not necessarily selling anything specific, but we’re just trying to understand the landscape, the kind of problems and the use cases that they have so we can support them the best way.”

As of May, the programme reached 300,000 businesses across the US, with 51 per cent owned by women and 62 per cent Black or Hispanic. Verizon’s goal is to provide digital support to 1 million SMBs by 2030.

Verizon is educating SMBs through a six-month training programme designed to teach them how to use technology to close capacity and efficiency gaps with larger rivals.

The graduation ceremony in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will have a final session on AI.

Rajagopalan explained SMBs should think about AI in terms of how it can increase their revenue and drive growth while also providing best-in-class customer service.  

He noted Verizon has “deep expertise” for using machine learning and AI and hopes to “extend this awareness and knowledge to the small-and-medium businesses at the local level”.

Rajagopalan stated the first step to adopting AI or genAI is having a solid data management practice in place which includes security and privacy among other elements.

“On top of that, you can absolutely build some models,” he noted. “Then you can innovate and experiment and take that further by leveraging generative AI to drive growth for businesses.”

Use cases
Rajagopalan said there are specific small language models becoming available along with generalised AI tools to help SMBs with marketing automation or inventory management.

AI and genAI can also be used to track key metrics, identify patterns, predict future trends, automate tasks, track progress and enable collaboration among product management teams.

For marketing, SMBs can personalise their emails, segment audiences and optimise sending times while also scheduling social media posts, analysing engagement levels and identifying trends.

There are also chatbots to answer customer queries and provide full-time support.

AI can also be used to create virtual assistants that can schedule appointments, manage calendars and answer emails.

With Verizon providing SMBs with networking opportunities, educational programmes and other resources, Rajagopalan stated “the entry barriers for using AI have gone down significantly”.

“Small businesses now have access to tremendous amounts of resources that a very large enterprise has that typically require a lot of investment”.