Prompt engineering as a service helping SMBs embrace AI, says Seal Global

He is a Miami-based, Indian-American entrepreneur known for founding several successful companies spanning the domains of internet retail (Databazaar.com), IT-enabled services (Databazaar Digital), media streaming (BongFlix), and e-commerce/AI consulting and investment (Seal Global). Anyone, using a generative AI tool like ChatGPT, knows that the quality of the output is totally dependent on the ‘prompt’ or command one puts in. Therefore, knowing how to craft the proper prompt is the key in the use of generative AI. Finding prompt engineers is huge problem, particularly for SMBs. Speaking to Bizz Buzz exclusively, Oney Seal, Founder, Seal Global explains how his organisation’s prompt engineering as a service promises to address exactly that problem for small and medium businesses

Where does India stand in terms of adoption of AI technology and tools vis-a-vis other countries?

India is in a very strong position in the global AI landscape both in terms of the adoption of AI technology as well as the presence of AI technology companies. AI indices like the Stanford AI Index places India near the top. More importantly, Peak AI’s Decision Intelligence Maturity Scale, which assesses a business’s commercial AI readiness, places India at the number one position. Companies building AI tools today, including ours, have significant portions of the AI team operating from India.

India has more than 6.3 crore of registered SMBs and the segment contributes more than 30 per cent of the country's GDP. It is also one of the largest employment generators. At this outset, it is very important that such a crucial sector adopts and embraces any new technology that comes into being. Is the Indian MSME embracing AI, the way it should be?

With AI adoption becoming such a buzzword, SMBs all over the world, not just in India, are either feeling overwhelmed or feeling left behind. However, in my interactions with many small and medium-size business owners in USA, I have seen that they do realize that AI adoption is a must to grow their business. But the big question is, how? Where to start? Is it something affordable or is it just for the big businesses?

If not, what is standing in the way?

Understanding the real challenge of AI adoption is the key. The real challenge is not just technology but also the people adopting it. At the end of the day, AI is just another tool to vastly improve productivity, just like the internet has been over the last three decades. So the business owner can either be that change agent himself or partner with a company such as ours – Seal Global – to identify and implement AI in the business processes.

You have been (either through Databazaar.com and Seal Global in USA or through Databazaar Digital in India) have all along been one of the early movers in emerging technologies such as e-commerce, OTT and now AI. What do you think needs to be done to ensure that the AI adoption dream gets properly translated into reality?

My learning comes from my observations in adoption of e-commerce over the past decades. My advice would therefore be to make AI the top priority of the company. Every department, process and function should develop a roadmap on how they are planning to adopt AI in the next days and months and clearly define the desired outcomes. At the cost of sounding self-serving, I must add that this is exactly where SMBs especially need a partner like us to craft the perfect AI solution for them. Pre-packaged AI tools are most likely not the ideal solution and custom solutions are actually affordable if you find the right partner.

In this regard, how important is customisation of such tools?

Generative AI is based on what are called Large Language Models (LLMs). What it means is that mostly text data from all over the internet was ingested with the help of astounding computing power and is used as the source data. As you can imagine, that may not be the best data source for your company. You want your AI tool trained on your company’s specific data. In other words, a private LLM. A custom AI tool for your particular use case trained on your private LLM is therefore the desired goal.

How does the MSME sector stand to gain through adoption of AI?

Cloud computing, which was the last tech revolution, was a B2B technology that only a small percentage of an organization got involved with. AI, especially Generative AI like ChatGPT and Claude, on the other hand, are mass B2C products that can benefit the productivity of a large portion of an organization’s employees. Custom AI tools built around the core Generative AI technologies can vastly improve the productivity of pretty much every single business process.

Which are the operational areas (like accounting, access to finance, data analysis and predictions and projections, manpower planning and HR etc), where AI tools should be adopted on priority basis?

Like I said, pretty much every single process can benefit from the adoption of AI. Choosing the use case where it will make the maximum impact for a business is what a business owner needs to figure out. This is exactly where the consulting services of a company like Seal Global come in – identifying a use case and developing an AI solution for it.

You have come up with something called Prompt Engineering as a Service (PEaaS). Could you throw some light on this?

Anyone that has used a generative AI tool like ChatGPT knows that the quality of the output is totally dependent on the “prompt” or command one puts in. Therefore, knowing how to craft the proper prompt is the key in the use of generative AI. This has given rise to an entire career option, an industry, called prompt engineering. The challenge to find prompt engineers is a much written about problem today. And obviously it is an even bigger challenge for a smaller organization. Seal Global’s prompt engineering as a service addresses exactly that problem for small and medium businesses.

Which are the industries/business sectors that you are targeting in India with your AI-driven tools/solutions?

Since we are an American company serving SMBs in the US market, we have never really had the bandwidth to engage with the Indian market. What would be ideal for us is to find a partner company in India that can help us deliver to clients in all industry sectors since AI adoption is really industry agnostic.

Many startups and SMBs often do not opt for such tools for lack of finance or thinking these are very expensive or unaffordable. How would you like to break that myth/notion?

The fact is that the human part of AI adoption for a business is expensive at this moment. Especially, when you are looking for custom solutions. We at Seal Global are addressing this issue exactly how we have been doing it in e-commerce for the last two decades – by bringing turnkey solutions in AI at a value price.