(This column originally appeared in Forbes)
Here are five things in tech that happened this week in business tech news and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
This Week in Business Tech News
Business Tech News #1 — Google Workspace introduces new AI features across Gemini, Chat, Gmail, and Slides.
Google Workspace has released several AI-powered enhancements across its suite of tools, aiming to boost productivity and streamline workflows for business users. Gemini App enhancements include Canvas — a new interactive workspace that allows users to draft documents and collaborate with AI for feedback, tone adjustments, and formatting. Audio Overviews allows users to generate podcast-style audio summaries of documents or Deep Research reports, facilitating information consumption on the go. Google Slides Enhancements — a consolidated design sidebar offers quick access to new templates, pre-formatted building blocks like agendas and quotes, an expanded stock photo and GIF library, and AI-generated images, simplifying the creation of visually compelling presentations. To review the entire list of updates, visit the link. (Source: Small Business Trends)
Why this is important for your business:
The problem most business office suites like Google Workspace or Office 365 is under-use. Microsoft and Google keep rolling out new features and yet most of us don’t spend the time learning them. Many of my clients still use these products like they did 20 years ago — for basic word processing or spreadsheet analysis. But as more AI features are introduced it becomes even more important to take the time (and invest the money) get training from consultants and other professionals familiar with these features as many of these capabilities can have a significant impact on productivity.
Business Tech News #2 — Autonomous robot designed to simplify warehouse inventory tracking.
OmniScanBot — an autonomous robot developed by Kennesaw State University in collaboration with RugGear U.S. LLC — has been developed to streamline warehouse inventory tracking. Designed to “simplify, speed up, and safeguard” inventory tracking in large warehouses, the technology uses RFID scanning — offering more accuracy than barcode scanning or manual counting. Equipped with cameras, LiDAR, and navigation software to autonomously map and move through warehouses, it resolves inefficiencies in traditional inventory checks, which are often inaccurate and prone to costly errors. (Source: Tech Xplore)
Why this is important for your business:
Robots like these will ultimately conduct cycle counting, stock check and safety analysis of products in a warehouse, just as people are doing now. This will be a huge advantage to my clients that can’t find enough hourly warehouse workers, or workers that are conscientious enough to track quantities in this manner.
Business Tech News #3 — USB flash drives are going extinct. Use these alternatives instead.
USB flash drives are becoming obsolete due to their limited storage capacity, slower speeds, and outdated USB-A connectors. External hard drives are among the most popular alternatives. Other alternatives like cloud storage, and microSD cards offer better performance, larger capacities, and greater compatibility with current devices. They offer significantly more storage (up to 4TB and more), and SSDs in particular impress with their high transfer speed. These options provide faster data transfer rates and are more suitable for today’s high-volume data needs. (Source: PCWorld)
Why this is important for your business:
I carry around a handful of USB flash drives and on my list of 100 top problems of the day, they’re not on it. The drives have plenty of space to copy the kinds of files I need them for and the copy/paste process usually takes a few seconds. They’re inexpensive, portable and adaptable to pretty much any device. I can’t imagine carrying around a heavier, more expensive external hard drive, I’m not sure how to use microSD cards and have you tried saving/downloading from the cloud? It’s way more time consuming. Bottom line (and at least for me) I’m not seeing USB flash drives become extinct anytime soon.
Business Tech News #4 — Legal trends report: How law firms are adapting to digital payments.
The article explores how law firms are embracing digital payments to enhance their financial health. Key trends that have been reported include, a shift to online payments as 66 percent of clients now prefer credit cards and online transactions. Digital payment solutions reduce processing time and improve cash flow, with firms seeing faster payments. Law firms are adopting secure portals for transactions, ensuring better data protection while AI and automation tools are proving to optimize billing cycles and reduce manual workload. (Source: Legal IT Insider)
Why this is important for your business:
The legal profession is by far (for me) the most difficult to implement new technologies. Lawyers are busy, in a rush and any time spent learning new technologies is time away from billable hours. Which goes to show how valuable some of these tools mentioned above can be if they’re able to be rolled out to a firm’s partners.
Business Tech News #5 — Wix and ActiveCampaign launch integration to enhance customer engagement and marketing automation.
Wix and ActiveCampaign announced a new partnership this week that brings advanced marketing automation directly into the Wix platform. The integration lets businesses — from solopreneurs to franchises — seamlessly sync customer data, personalize campaigns based on user behavior, and automate marketing efforts without bouncing between tools. Users can also get centralized reporting and enhanced multi-location support through ActiveCampaign HQ. The company says its goal is to help small teams power smarter, faster growth without technical overhead. (Source: Benzinga)
Why this is important for your business:
I have a number of clients who use both Wix for website building and ActiveCampaign for their marketing -particularly email campaigns — and up until now both systems sat apart from each other like islands. Which means that companies — particularly smaller firms with fewer resources were forced to import/export or just re-enter data collected on their websites into their marketing campaigns manually, a time consuming process that oftentimes falls low on the priority list and when done incurs data entry errors. This kind of integration is a huge help for businesses using both platforms.
