Ever wondered how AI can transform business strategy?
In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world
of AI-powered SWOT analysis.
So we are tackling an old problem using a new approach.
Welcome to Data, AI, Productivity, and Business
with a little personality broadcast.
It's a show where we explore the cutting edge
of business strategy, technology, data,
and everything in between.
I'm your host, Mukundan Sankar.
I'm an experienced data professional
who loves researching about AI
and demonstrating how they can be practically applied
to our everyday world.
If you ever wondered how AI is changing the game
for companies or how to leverage data for your own use
in general to make smarter decision-making,
you're in the right place, my friend.
Today, we're diving into something
that's shaking up the business world,
which is AI-powered SWOT analysis.
We'll explore how we can use AI
to break down the top-performing companies
by their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats,
which is what SWOT analysis is.
And we want to be able to do this faster
and more accurately than ever before.
So we also got some exciting real-world examples
from companies like Google and Meta
that'll show you how exactly this works in action.
So whether you're an entrepreneur, business leader,
or just someone who's just curious to know more about AI,
stick around because this episode is packed with insights
that can help you get ahead of the curve.
So I don't know about you, but when I was in school,
I had taken a business school course,
which was about policy and strategy.
And specifically, they were involved about companies
and what policies they've undertaken,
what was the strategy.
So I had to research about companies a lot
during my time there.
So I had to research about all the top companies.
And one of the kind of analysis that I did
during one of my assignments was the SWOT analysis.
And that brings me to today's episode.
So what analysis basically is
you're looking at strengths of the company,
what are the opportunities that the company has,
what are its weaknesses and what are its
the potential threats it faces.
So it helps you look at the company at an overview.
And that is something that will help you
to understand the company better.
So I've also written a blog about it,
which I'll link in the show notes
of how to do SWOT analysis using AI.
So that's my blog.
But today, especially I will be exploring how AI
specifically 3.5 Turbo GPT can help
in analyzing companies in the S&P 500 space
and deliver those valuable strategic insights
faster than ever before.
It's mind blowing to see how this technology
is shaking up traditional SWOT analysis.
So one of the reasons also doing this is,
back in my time is I had to spend like a couple of days
doing this kind of work.
Like researching about the companies,
finding the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
It takes a while to find that information
using like a regular Google search,
or whatever other kind of search methods you used.
So, or you have to watch YouTube videos.
So as a combination of everything that you're doing,
and it takes a while to do that research.
So what I've gathered with my recent knowledge
and my research with AI is that,
well, let me apply AI to other fields.
And I just keep thinking of more and more areas
where I can apply AI.
And the other day, something like SWOT analysis
just struck my mind.
So I was just thinking, well, what new project can I do?
So SWOT analysis was something that came in my mind.
And with AI, so what kind of AI large language model
can I apply, right?
And GPT 3.5 is relatively inexpensive.
Then like the latest one, which is GPT 4 and 4.0.
So those ones would be more expensive to run.
So GPT 3.5 gives me the right amount of insights
that I need.
And it also does this quicker.
Yes, I'm sure GPT 4.0 is quicker.
But I mean, I also wanted to just get it something
cost efficient, right?
Like this is just something I like to do on the side.
So this is for me.
And if you're listening,
you can obviously experiment around it.
If AI excites you, that's awesome.
I look forward to seeing your projects.
So basically, yes, you can use GPT
to analyze this massive amount of information.
So what's happening essentially in my project
is that you have these different companies.
And in my particular use case,
I am comparing two companies in the SMP 500 space.
Why SMP 500?
It's because when these are the top 500 companies,
the standard and poor index, right?
So that's something which would give understanding
of the top performing companies.
So that's why I chose these two.
I mean, this space.
And looking at two companies specifically,
it gives a nice comparison.
So in my use case, I'm just like comparing
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats,
but it's not line by line comparison.
You can obviously ask AI to do that.
So AI is very powerful and capable to do
line by line comparison between the two companies.
So in my use case, I've used Google and Meta
as the two companies I wanted to compare.
So I got the strengths of Google,
the weaknesses, opportunities, threats,
and same thing for Meta.
So basically it helped me understand
what could be strengths and the weaknesses
was some of the interesting insights that came from it.
And Facebook was data privacy.
We all know the whole Cambridge Analytica thing
which happened in 2016.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure the privacy took a hit.
Something similar to Google as well,
like the regulatory standards,
a lot of things happening with regulations these days.
So Google is, I mean, everybody's,
all these big companies, we don't know
what they're tracking.
So that's something we need to be mindful of.
So I mean, just like that's something
the SWOT analysis gives you, right?
It gives you that understanding of the company
at a higher level.
So my application, which I had pasted screenshots
for in my blog, you can see that in the show notes.
So you're able to understand that what kind of insights
are being provided.
So yeah, in addition to the SWOT,
there's also something called as insights,
additional insights, which I gave for each of the companies.
So that will also tell you like what kind of upcoming things
you need to watch out for, which can go in the,
each of the, in any of the SWOT blog.
So what I had used for this project was using Python
programming and there's like a front end library
called Streamlit.
You can obviously use Flask.
So that's something up to you.
But on the more AI side,
ask GPT specifically like to build a data model around this,
basically asking like, can you do a strength comparison?
Can you do weaknesses?
Can you do, can you get opportunity and threats?
So that would give you like the complete number,
the complete picture essentially.
And what was most exciting about this project
was how we can use AI to do something
which we were doing traditionally by like random,
by just like research, right?
Like by doing a lot of Google searches,
by doing a lot of YouTube.
That's what I used to do, but like,
anything that you would do.
So with that all was really time consuming
and AI is really making all of this really efficient.
So the response time for this was, I think,
just maybe a few seconds, I would say,
maybe five or 10 seconds.
And if you're into that, like if you're into speed versus,
you know, a deeper research,
which obviously means more accuracy.
I think the speed was, and this model is pretty accurate,
I believe.
You can obviously use more modern
and more faster last language models.
That's up to you, but I think this one was fine
for my use case.
So I would encourage you to go ahead
and try something like this as well,
especially if you're in maybe like in your company
and you do a SWOT analysis to understand your competitors.
And it would benefit you to maybe use a tool like this.
And also, if you would like me to actually make this live
versus you building it out yourself,
please let me know.
Feel free to just respond to me on my Subscribe channel
or podcast, wherever you find it,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify.
So I'm available, just reach out to me in the comment section
and I'm happy to help make this live.
And yeah, I just think using AI for different applications
is a total game changer.
So this was just SWOT analysis,
but everything and anything under the sun
can now be under AI.
Obviously there's a trust issue
and ethics and privacy issue, but that's separate.
But for me, AI is something that I'm completely embracing.
I just want our future to be completely shaped by it.
Thank you for this.
Again, that's a wrap for today.
I look forward to seeing more of you in the next episode
and thanks for tuning in and until next time,
keep learning, keep growing,
and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
Thanks everyone.
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Thank you.