Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce event educates small business owners on the basics of AI

Plains Twp. — As the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce considers the agenda for its first Empowering Development, Growth and Entrepreneurship Summit, leaders recognized the importance and timeliness of providing small business owners with a roadmap for artificial intelligence adoption.

At Monday’s event in Mohegan, Pennsylvania, industry experts briefed business owners and professionals on AI topics ranging from cybersecurity to marketing to time-saving tips.

Liam Neville, managing partner at Neville AI Partners, which helps businesses adopt AI through practical implementation and long-term growth strategies, emphasized that as artificial intelligence continues to become more prevalent in everyday work, successful implementation requires a collective effort.

“AI is changing every business, but its power is determined by team buy-in,” he said.

Neville added that artificial intelligence will not replace the human side of business.

“I strongly believe that this is not a threat and in fact our humanity is more important than ever,” he said. “AI has no empathy, no intuition, no spark that makes humans special.”

Neville pointed out several benefits that AI brings to business.

“I like to think of this as the quantitative and qualitative benefits of using AI to scale our activities,” he said. “The quantitative ones are efficiency gains, time savings, process streamlining, and overall efficiency gains. That leads to the qualitative side, where you have more time to focus on higher-value touchpoints, like strategic alignment and vision. If you use AI correctly, you can definitely save time (about 5-10 hours a week retrospectively) and increase your profits. You’ll be able to make decisions faster and with greater accuracy over a period of time.” Time. “

Neville stressed that artificial intelligence tools are not foolproof.

“They remember everything much better than humans, but they have a lot of cognitive deficits,” he says. “They make things up and don’t have enough inside knowledge about themselves, so it’s important to cite sources and make sure you’re dealing with trustworthy data. They can also leak your data. External sources can come in and easily trick you into feeding them your information, so it’s important to keep your data safe. Ideally on a local encrypted server.”

Neville compared understanding the intricacies of artificial intelligence to learning a new sport.

“Grip is the art of quickness, and routine is the discipline of how you seek information,” he said. “And just keep practicing. Be patient with yourself, slowly incorporate it into your workflow, and it will gradually become second nature. Don’t wait. Start small, whether it’s summarizing one meeting or generating one marketing idea today, keep what works and throw away what doesn’t.”

Alex Molfetas, co-owner of Center City Print and co-creator of ResideSync, an AI-driven property management platform that transforms the way landlords, tenants and service providers connect, said it’s important to feed artificial intelligence tools as much information as possible to get the best results.

“AI is like a new employee,” he said. “It doesn’t know anything about you. The harder you work, the more you’ll accomplish. The key is weak versus strong prompts. An example might be acting as an experienced customer strategist or an experienced marketer with 30 years of experience. The more data you provide, the better the results you’ll get in the end. The golden rule is to think before you act. Instead of telling people to write a fundraising email, write a fundraising email. Tell them to think of three approaches: first present your plan, wait for approval, and then use it. The biggest feature is time saving. You can have a back-and-forth conversation, or you can provide clear examples upfront. ”

Because artificial intelligence technology evolves rapidly, Molfetas said it’s important for business owners to continually look for ways to leverage it to their company’s benefit.

“AI has changed a lot in the last two months from when I created this presentation last week and from when I was asked to speak at this conference,” he said. “At Center City Print, we worked to re-engineer our CRM (customer relationship management) order management and workflow using AI, eliminating steps that were probably worth at least 20 minutes.”

Using AI tools, Molfetas said, business owners who also have family obligations can save time and develop better structures for completing repetitive tasks.

“When I wake up every morning, I have so many things on my list to do at home and at work that I feel overwhelmed,” he said. “I talked to ChatGPT and sorted it out. It’s not that you or I are incompetent, but there are always better and more efficient ways to do it. AI just simplifies it and unlocks it a little bit.”

First published: October 10, 2025 10:43 AM EDT