Brittney Robinson and Caitlin Becker are using artificial intelligence to build an app for Bloom Wine Bar and Florals, streamlining what had been a manual task for their small business.
Robinson said their vision was to create an app where members can log in, see their current perks, redeem benefits, track visits and stay updated on upcoming events. Currently, many of these processes are handled manually.
“So we’re excited to improve the member experience while reducing administrative work behind the scenes,” said Robinson, who co-owns Bloom Wine Bar in downtown Springfield along with Becker.
Bloom Wine Bar is one of several local businesses who completed a recent six-week workshop sponsored by Innovate Springfield focused on helping small businesses expand their AI use.
“Our main takeaway from the class is knowing what tools are out there for us to use, how to spot AI-generated marketing and knowing when to use these tools and when not to,” Becker said. “We do not want to replace anything that we currently do except to troubleshoot hang-ups that we spend too much time on that could be solved with some information and processes.”
Working efficiently is vital for Robinson and Becker as the two are involved in every aspect of the business – from inventory, staffing and food preparation to floral design, event planning and customer service. They’re also expanding into the two upper floors of their historic downtown building on the Old Capitol Plaza to create additional event spaces, including adding a new commercial kitchen.
Robinson said her biggest insight gained from the workshop was realizing how many AI tools are available to solve different types of problems.
“Rather than trying to use one tool for everything, we learned how to identify specific pain points in our business and match them with the right technology,” she said.
Like Bloom Wine Bar, Arlington’s Catering and Historic Venue was sponsored by Downtown Springfield, Inc. to attend the workshop. Co-owner Brian Reilly now uses ChatGPT and Claude to create routine checklists and to scale recipes for large crowds.
“For instance, I can tell ChatGPT I need to make a list of cleaning procedures, and it does a very good job of finding those things for me that I would otherwise have to spend a lot of time researching,” Reilly said.
As for scaling recipes, AI is invaluable. “There’s a lot of math that goes into taking a recipe that I might have built for 25-30 people and scaling that for, say, 330 people,” Reilly said. “It really helps on a fast turnaround. Also, AI has certainly saved us some time when we’re doing conversions, such as a bakery item that we are trying to make in mass quantities with all kinds of different measurements.”
He said he feels strongly, though, about not using AI when it might take a job away from a human.
“I try to be very careful about using in ways that are not taking money out of the hands of entrepreneurs such as graphic artists,” he said. “We want to use it to make ourselves more efficient and put more money in our pocket because we can get more things done in a shorter amount of time.”
He’s found that the accuracy of AI results hinges on correct input. “Sometimes the way that I feed it information may be inaccurate, but I’ve caught those pretty quickly,” he said. “I’ve started screenshotting a recipe and putting that into the program I’m using, and that avoids my user error. It might take a time or two, but it’s been pretty accurate.”
Another workshop participant, Tracy Dowell, is the owner of Springfield Running Center on West White Oaks Drive, a full-service store specializing in walking, running, work and everyday shoes and accessories. She said since participating in the workshop, she has become more confident and proficient in using AI in day-to-day business including accounting, inventory management and forecasting.
“My staff and I now rely on it daily for fresh ideas and support,” Dowell said. She said she currently works with Claude, ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini and uses Nano Banana for image generation.
“One of the most valuable things I learned was how to cross-reference information between platforms – building on and fact-checking results from one AI with another,” she said. “For example, I’ll give Claude clear instructions on tone and the information I’m looking for, then take that result into ChatGPT to expand on it and verify accuracy. This approach gives me deeper, more well-rounded search and consistently more reliable information for my business.”
All acknowledge the uncertainty about how AI will expand and change, but they also all expect AI platforms and usages to grow. “I don’t think anyone can truly say they know where AI is going within their business,” Dowell said.
“From what I have gathered, it’s reinventing all the time, constantly in flux with new upgrades and functionality,” Reilly said. “It’s not completely natural for me yet, but its advantages in certain aspects of what we do have certainly outweighed the disadvantages.”
This article appears in August SBJ 2026.