There’s little at Aladdin Printing & Copying to suggest it’s a business preparing for an AI-powered future.
Inside the Broad Street shop, the presses stay busy while customers drift in throughout the day, often lingering for conversation as they pick up business cards, menus or brochures. Many are greeted by name. Employees ask about their families, remember past jobs and treat routine pickups like visits.
In fact, much of the operation feels frozen in time, as if the last three decades of technological change never happened.
Customer records still reside in Rolodexes thick with index cards, while decades of job histories fill filing cabinets packed with paper work orders. Orders travel through the shop attached to handwritten paperwork, and transactions are still rung up on an aging cash register that looks like it belongs in another era.
While the system is undeniably old, it also works.
That tension – between a system refined over nearly three decades and the need to modernize without losing what makes it work – is what Aladdin is trying to navigate as it replaces much of its paper-based workflow with a cloud-based customer management system that uses artificial intelligence.
Keeping what matters
For many businesses, AI is about replacing workers. At Aladdin, the goal is to free employees from the repetitive administrative tasks that keep them from spending time with customers.
“We don’t want to lose the neighborhood feel of our business because of AI,” says Parker Allison, Aladdin’s communications and workflow specialist, who’s leading the transition. “AI should work for us, not against us.”
That distinction matters at a company whose reputation has long rested on relationships. Customers can order printed materials almost anywhere. Allison says they keep coming back for the service.
“Our customers aren’t names on an order. We know their families. We know what’s happening in their lives. They come through the door and we spend time talking with them. That’s something you don’t get at Office Depot.”
Those conversations are precisely what the company doesn’t want technology to replace.
A shop with deep roots
Aladdin Printing has been part of Chattanooga’s business community since 1996, when founder Ginger Weeks purchased the former Bee Line Printing & Copying business on Chestnut Street and built it into one of the city’s best-known print shops.
Following Weeks’ death in January 2025, longtime associate Cindy Mathis took ownership and has continued operating the business with the same emphasis on fast turnaround and customer relationships.
Allison wasn’t recruited through a job search – he was already a customer.
As someone who regularly designed marketing materials, church publications and promotional pieces, he found himself visiting Aladdin frequently.
“I came in to pick up a print job and said, ‘If you ever need help with graphics or your website, let me know,’” Allison recalls. “I wasn’t expecting Cindy to take me seriously.”
She did, though, and a few conversations later, Allison had joined the company. As he began modernizing the business, he also discovered how much of its history was tucked inside its filing cabinets.
Increasingly limiting
The existing process has served Aladdin well. For nearly three decades, it’s helped the company build a reputation for quick turnaround times and exceptional customer service.
Presently, a customer emails artwork, someone adjusts the file if needed and a paper work order accompanies it through production. Invoices are handwritten and customer records are pulled from physical files.
Every job is touched repeatedly before it ever reaches the printer.
For a small shop processing a remarkable volume of work, that means countless hours devoted to administrative tasks rather than production or customer service.
“You could throw a rock anywhere in Chattanooga and hit an Aladdin customer,” Allison jokes. “Sit down at almost any restaurant, and there’s a good chance we printed the menus.”
That success is precisely why the transition has required such meticulous planning. When Allison proposed migrating nearly three decades of customer records into a modern CRM, Mathis asked whether he understood what he was taking on.
“She said, ‘You’ve seen how many customers we have. Do you understand the weight of converting a system like that?’”
AI behind the curtain
The new customer relationship management system remains in the testing phase, with a rollout expected in the coming months.
When complete, customers will be able to upload artwork through Aladdin’s website, receive instant pricing, track orders and, in many cases, allow the software to identify problems before a human ever has to intervene.
Rather than requiring employees to manually prepare every file before production begins, the system can identify common problems – such as images that are too small to print clearly – recommend or make basic corrections, and route print-ready jobs into the production queue.
For customers, that means fewer emails back and forth, faster turnaround times and greater visibility into where an order stands.
For employees, it means less time performing repetitive administrative work.
“Customers can see exactly what they’re getting before we ever touch the job,” Allison says. “They can place an order at midnight, and we’re not going to lose that customer because the shop is closed.”
Equally important, customers will receive immediate pricing rather than waiting for someone to calculate estimates manually.
“Right now, we have to provide a quote for every job,” Allison says. “With the new system, customers can see the price immediately and decide what works for their budget. If they want to remove an option or simplify the order, they can do that, and the system updates the price automatically.”
Technology still needs people
Allison sees AI as a useful tool, not a magic solution, and speaks as readily about its shortcomings as its potential.
AI-generated artwork, for all its convenience, often lacks the resolution needed for high-quality printing and can introduce subtle visual glitches or formatting errors that trained designers quickly recognize.
That’s why Aladdin still employs an in-house designer who reviews customer files and frequently makes corrections before anything reaches the press.
“AI has to be monitored,” Allison says. “It has to be taught what works and what doesn’t. If it gets something wrong, that can be detrimental to our business.”
Rather than replacing expertise, he sees AI as extending it.
Employees spend less time hunting through filing cabinets or repeatedly emailing customers about file problems, leaving more time for the conversations and creative problem-solving that distinguish local businesses from national chains.
Modernizing without losing identity
That measured approach reflects a broader reality facing many small businesses.
Artificial intelligence has generated excitement, but also skepticism.
Owners worry about reliability, employees wonder what it means for their jobs and customers fear losing the personal interactions they value.
Aladdin’s approach suggests those concerns don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Technologies can automate routine tasks while preserving the human relationships customers actually remember.
“Since opening Aladdin in 1996, we’ve always believed great customer service comes first,” Mathis says in an email. “Technology hasn’t changed that. It’s simply helping us deliver the same quality and personal attention our customers expect in faster, more efficient ways.”
A lesson for small business
Aladdin is changing its old way of doing business not because it failed but because it worked.
Allison says the company’s paper-based systems supported decades of growth but now require more manual work than a growing business can sustain. He believes many long-established businesses face the same challenge as they modernize decades-old processes.
The goal isn’t to replace the old way of doing business, he says, but to use the right technology to preserve what made the business successful in the first place.
The filing cabinets might eventually disappear and the Rolodexes might finally be retired. But customers will soon be able to upload files at midnight, receive instant pricing and track their orders from start to finish – all online.
But if Aladdin succeeds in its transition, the most important part of visiting the shop won’t change at all.
There will still be someone behind the counter who knows your name, remembers your last project and asks how your family is doing. The technology will simply make sure they have more time to do that.