Last updated on September 17th, 2025 at 10:33 pm

When you’re a small manufacturer, incorporating AI into your process is easier said than done.

Small and mid-sized manufacturers often wear many hats and juggle constant problem-solving. The learning curve — and potential cost — of adopting smart technology is frequently pushed to the back burner.

That was the case at Sunnyland Farms, a family-owned business in Albany, Georgia, known for its specialty pecans and baked goods. Each year, the holiday rush brought an all-hands-on-deck effort. As shipping costs rose, CEO Alex Willson knew something had to change — but didn’t know where to start.

That’s when he reached out to Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing, or Georgia AIM.

“AI is not a four-letter word, right?” said Chuck Easley, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Supply Chain and Logistics Institute and a lead for Georgia AIM’s Rural Supply Chain Initiative. “In the state of Georgia, I think there’s several key things you have to focus on. The first one is, this is designed to help, not hurt.”

Easley had met Willson at several events in the Albany area. Willson decided to explore how Sunnyland might benefit from AI — even in a small way.

“We really didn’t have a detailed view of exactly where boxes were going and how much it was costing us,” Willson said. “And we wanted to get a more granular view of that. It’s challenging for a business our size because we have people that are stretched fairly thin.”

It was also a concern for Leshonda Jones, Sunnyland’s vice president of operations. Free shipping was a cornerstone of their customer experience, but the line item for shipping kept growing. AI wasn’t originally on her radar.

“The world of AI that I Google[d], prior to this, I did not see the advantage of it,” she said.

That changed when Easley connected Sunnyland with Arpita Gupte, a Georgia Tech undergraduate who joined the company as a summer intern through Georgia AIM. Under Easley’s guidance, Gupte used ChatGPT to organize and analyze Sunnyland’s shipping records.

By running anonymized data through the free generative AI platform, Gupte helped the company visualize where orders were going, compare carrier rates, and evaluate cost-saving options like flat-rate shipping.

And the system, Gupte said, is user-friendly enough for employees without prior AI experience.

“With ChatGPT, in comparison with a lot of search engines, you can enter your thinking process into the program and it will understand you. And that’s what I love about it,” she said. “For a small business, sometimes there are things you don’t really know how to do. Using ChatGPT, I was able to create certain prompts to help clean up a spreadsheet. Eventually, that prompt engineering can be used so that Sunnyland themselves can use it.”

Within three months, Gupte’s work produced real savings.

“We took the data and analyzed what we were paying currently versus what we could pay,” Willson said. “As a more informed customer, it allows us to go to our shipping partner and say, ‘Listen, we want you to make money too, but we also need to have a product that our customers can afford. How can you help us here?’”

The savings were reinvested in the company — in solar panels and automated bagging machinery — making Sunnyland more resilient in the long term. And the AI journey didn’t stop there: Georgia AIM is now supporting a team of five Georgia Tech students to continue exploring customer discovery and additional smart technology solutions.

“We’re really trying to figure out ways to automate tasks that are manual,” Willson said. “Not to replace humans, but to basically have them do more high-value tasks.”

Jones said the experience made her a believer in the value of AI.

“Any time you take that first step, it seems like a leap of faith,” she said. “You’re nervous because you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. But we tried it. We did it. And we’re better for it. And now we’re looking forward to more growth.”

Easley said the story is a prime example of how AI can empower small businesses, especially when paired with Georgia AIM’s support.

“It taps into a level of creativity that smaller businesses — family-owned, multigenerational businesses — have always had to have,” he said. “Some are further along than others, but they each have a need. Our trick is to figure out quickly what their respective need is, how do we meet it, and how do we help them move to the next level for where they are.”

Curious where your business could implement AI and smart technology, but not sure where to start? Georgia AIM is here to help.