Changing the Business Landscape

An artificial intelligence chatbot can’t pull weeds, spread mulch or prune shrubs, but that doesn’t mean landscapers aren’t benefiting from AI technology. Just ask new business graduate Jeffrey Allen ’24.

In 2021, Allen and a high school friend started their own landscaping company, Straight Up Service, in their hometown of Litchfield, New Hampshire, to help pay for college. “We always had summer jobs, but owning and operating our own business ended up being a better route financially,” he says.

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT during his junior year, Allen began playing with the technology to see what it could do. He soon discovered that it could help run his business.

“I had been doing marketing by myself, but using ChatGPT, I could create well-written posts, which allowed me to spend time focusing on other things,” says Allen, who was a distance runner on UML’s men’s cross country and track and field teams.

Allen and his business partner, University of Rhode Island student Jonah Crema, hired a finance intern and asked him to incorporate AI into the company’s accounting system.

“A finance intern’s job typically would be to go through all the data and create easy-to-read graphs for us. But instead, AI takes that data in,” Allen says. “The intern’s job, basically, was to spend an hour making sure everything came out right. It made his work much easier, and it saved us time and money, allowing us to become a more efficient business.”

They also hired a marketing intern and told him to integrate AI into his tasks.

“Our marketing work (using AI) ended up being better than the year before,” says Allen, who adds that the business is at the point now where “we could do without interns.”

So … is Allen worried that AI will make marketing graduates like himself irrelevant?

“AI will replace a lot of jobs, but there will always be a use for the human mind. AI doesn’t have emotions, and the human part is so important,” he says.

Allen, who admits to using AI “more than I should for school and daily tasks,” thinks that it should be taught to students as early as middle school.

“If it’s used correctly, it can be really beneficial for everyone,” he says. “If you focus on the right stuff, every major in college will still be important.”