There are plenty of ways that AI can benefit
a pool and spa business;
that was the core message
of Pam Vinje’s seminar at the
International Pool | Spa | Patio Expo in
Dallas. Whether it’s in your advertising
or in the ability to offload tedious
tasks and free up your own time for
more important things, AI is getting
better and more relevant every day.
Techniques for implementing it into
your everyday processes are only
growing — so don’t be afraid of it,
Vinje emphasizes in her seminar.
Harness it instead.
REORGANIZING,
RESTRUCTURING, REDOING
Vinje, who’s been on the cutting edge
of digital marketing in the pool and
spa industry since she launched her
agency, Small Screen Producer, in 2009,
says that “artificial intelligence is being
baked into everything we’re doing.”
But what does this mean for your
business? Big or small, you can’t risk
falling behind the trends and losing
out on potential customers, potential
ad space, or the opportunity to make
your business more efficient. (Of
course, in the world of the internet, it
can feel impossible to keep up with the
ever-changing demands of consumer
audiences and the content they
consume.)
“Companies have to reinvent
themselves every 13 seconds,” Vinje
jests. “We’ve gone through so much
evolution with technology. First it
was regular websites, then mobile
sites, and then apps like Facebook,
Instagram and now Tiktok — constant
reorganization, restructuring, redoing.”
Barring hyperbole, it does feel
like the landscape of technology
and thus how companies should be
using it changes daily, if not even
more frequently. For the consumer,
it’s much easier to follow the whims
of digital marketing, internet trends
and the burgeoning use of AI. But for
businesses of all sizes, the need for
change comes at breakneck speed —
with the expectation that you’re both
ahead of current trends and engaging
in them.
This can be hard to block out when
it comes to deciphering which parts
of AI can serve your business better
(what good does an AI summary do
if your customers will have to read
the full article for that one piece
of information anyway?), but Vinje
presented a clean breakdown of three
types of AI processes and ways you
can use them to your advantage.
From helping you set calendar events
to assisting your advertising through
search engines, there’s plenty of
space for AI to help your burgeoning
business.
MODELS, AGENTS, PROMPTS
When it comes to understanding AI,
one of the most important things is
to swallow the big lump that rises
in your throat when you see how
overwhelming it can be. Outside of
industry-specific needs, it feels like AI
is everywhere, especially in places you wouldn’t expect. Some of the largest
platforms you might recognize are
Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and
the ever-controversial ChatGPT.
But Vinje identifies AI as three main components: models, agents and
prompts. Broken into bite-size pieces,
you have a better chance at digesting
which parts of AI can be most effective
for your business.
MODELS
ChatGPT is an example of an AI
model, which is defined as the engine
on which agents and prompts run,
according to Vinje. You’ll recognize
AI models as the predictive analytics,
or the chatbots you use when
trying to troubleshoot an issue. Or
maybe you’re more familiar with the
recommendations that streaming
services like Netflix show you each
time you sign in — analyzing past
movie choices and learning to display
similar choices for your next movie
night.
However familiar you are with AI
models, it goes without saying how
much they can assist you in daily
tasks. Models are trained to recognize
certain patterns and make particular
decisions without any assistance from
human users, all based on a set of
data. This is why chatbots work: After
the initial training phase, they come to
understand the most likely outcomes
of conversations or the most probable
desired results of certain procedures.
This way, AI models can complete
tasks and assist you without so much
as lifting a finger.
AGENTS
An AI agent is a little more specific in
its processing. Instead of being used
for data processing and prediction
like models are, agents are trained to
make decisions based on interactions
with users over time. This means that
specific tasks can be taught and thus
completed much more quickly after a
period of time.
Whether this is the creation
of images, videos, or something
more complex like reading financial
documents, AI agents have plenty of
opportunities for use in a business
setting.
Businesses most commonly use
AI agents for customer service and
virtual assistance, Vinje says. “There’s
an autonomy that’s gained through the
use of AI agents. We can and should use it to our advantage.”
Do your customers need assistance
when browsing your website? Is
your team currently too small to
accommodate this need? Consider
training AI to help you fill this void.
Assist your customers and devote your
time to something else.
PROMPTS
AI prompts are perhaps the easiest
to understand, as it’s exactly what it
sounds like: an instruction that users
give to AI agents and models, telling it
exactly what to do. In many instances,
the use of AI prompts will look like a
conversation between the user and
whichever software is being used.
For example, imagine you need
a description written for a product,
service, or event that your company
is advertising. With the use of AI
prompts, the stress of the blank page
can be instantly remedied by simply
asking it to write you a description.
The more specific the instruction, the
nearer to perfection the output will be.
At the very least, prompts for written
outputs can give you a starting point
before you edit it yourself to get the
desired result.
With a baseline knowledge of the
three main components of generative
AI, Vinje begins to unravel the
overwhelming mess of using it in
advertising, both the ways businesses
can use it to their advantage as well as
potential concerns that should be kept
in mind as the world of AI evolves.
USING AI IN YOUR DAILY
AGENDA
For Vinje, the value she places in her
team has had a major shift over the
last few years. “It’s easy to feel like
you become your tasks while at work,
or that your entire job is hinged on
these administrative tasks that we do
every day,” she says, “but that’s not the
case.”
If you strip away the responsibility
of your most tedious tasks, where does
that leave you?
The answer is simply put: You and
your team can be left to pursue the
more intensive requirements of your
job without worrying about the back
and forth of smaller things.
“We’re not giving up our brain
power to AI,” Vinje reassures her
audience. “They’re our assistants.
My prediction is that we’ll move to a
commonly used business model of
artificial intelligence plus automation
plus human intelligence. We
understand nuances much better than
AI, but there’s no reason not to use it
as an assistant.”
With an automated workflow,
things like setting calendar events,
drafting simple emails and monitoring
customer support avenues can be less
of a headache and open up your day to
do more for your business.
TREAD CAREFULLY:
ADVERTISING WITH AI
Specifically in the advertising sphere,
Vinje recommends caution and
recognizes the need for further
refinement over the coming years.
With AI overviews on search engines like Google, new issues are beginning
to emerge, one of them being the
apparent invisibility of industry-specific
websites behind more mainstream
brands.
Vinje referenced a particular
experiment where she tried conducting
an online search for what the internet
claimed to be the best hot tubs on the
market. Expecting to find particular
brands in the industry, she was
surprised to find the AI-generated
overview of the search results had
nothing of the kind.
“It didn’t name any brands in our
industry,” she explains. “Instead, I was
shown a list of non-industry brands,
like Wayfair and Home Depot.”
What’s more, Vinje says, is that
many times just trying to get an ad
campaign listed on a search engine is
as difficult as searching for them after
the fact. AI models will flag and reject
several ads due to the unfamiliarity
it has with certain industry-specific
terms.
Which begs the question, she
confirms: “How do we submit ads to
search engines if AI is going to get in
our way like this?”
Until AI has the power to learn
more about smaller industries,
advertising could prove to be a
struggle.
LOOKING AHEAD
It’s hard to exist in today’s world
without hearing AI referred to in both
positive and negative lights, but as
Vinje suggests, there’s no way around
it — for better or worse, AI is here to
stay. It will only get better. The best
thing for now is to learn how to use it to
your advantage, and see your business
thrive as we enter the age of artificial
intelligence.
“We’re allowing AI to be our
assistants,” Vinje reminds her audience.
“With this on our side, AI has the power
to make us both more productive and
scalable in the long run.”
This article first appeared in the February 2025 issue of AQUA Magazine — the top resource for retailers, builders and service pros in the pool and spa industry. Subscriptions to the print magazine are free to all industry professionals. Click here to subscribe.
