When we talk about AI in businesses, often it seems like the conversation is framed around revolutionary new ways that businesses can deliver bespoke AI-driven services, generate giant campaigns and creative projects, and shape the future of the industries. However, for small businesses, all of that seems more lofty than practical. However, it’s important for small businesses to know that AI has truly arrived for them, as well. Here, we’re going to look at some applications for AI in small businesses, some of them already widely used, and some of them in development.
Getting things started
Your business could benefit right at its very beginning. When starting a business, writing a business plan can be very valuable for a host of reasons. It is the blueprint that you outline for not just how you’re going to organize your efforts and carry out the services you intend to offer, but it also plots out your path to success, and what you need to do to become profitable. Lenders and investors will almost always demand a business plan to get an idea of how viable your idea is, too. There are now automated business plan writing tools that can help you put yours together, utilizing the data you provide to help you structure and format the plan from top to bottom.
Researching your market
Just as you need to come up with a business plan when you’re getting your business rolling, you need to make sure that you know the market that you’re getting into, as well. Market research is invaluable for businesses, helping you understand where you stand amongst your competitors, as well as which niches they might have left underserved so that you can compete with them more effectively. Some business owners have been using generative AI tools to ask questions about the market and to do some of the research for them so that they can quickly get information about the competitors they should spend more time doing their digging on, themselves.
Writing content
One of the most widespread uses of AI, so far, has been in the realm of content production. There are a whole host of tools that are able to write content of all kinds, be it informational, advice, marketing copy, and much more. The ways in which AI written content has grown over the past few years alone have been nothing short of astounding but it is still worth noting that it is very much in its infancy. Close scrutiny of AI-written content can still find plenty of instances of incorrect writing, inconsistent fact assertions, and logical issues. However, a lot of writers are using it as a tool to generalize the meat of their writing, with editing to ensure that the final output is correct.
Generating images
It’s easy for us to wrap our heads around how an AI can conceivably write authentic and valuable content when given the data to, but it’s even more impressive when you see what AI can bring out in terms of visuals. Already, there are a lot of businesses using generative AI art tools to create all manner of marketing and branding images. It has helped a lot of businesses cut down on the costs of having to pay artists to work long hours when AI is just as capable of generating detailed and evocative imagery on its own.
Taking care of your accounts
Accounting and bookkeeping are vital parts of running any business. You need to make sure that your numbers are good for tax purposes, first and foremost, but it’s also difficult to be able to comment on the health of a business without any idea of how its numbers are doing. To that end, AI accounting tools are able to help you not just manage your books and keep them organized more easily but also help you catch things like irregularities, which can either be a sign that the accounts were done incorrectly at some point, or there was fraud involved. Of course, when it comes to anything to do with how you manage your money, human supervision is always necessary, but AI can, at least, do a lot of heavy lifting.
Predicting your sales
A lot of businesses, big and small, already rely on sales forecasting. When you’re planning for the holiday season, you want to have a good idea of how many sales you’re going to make, as it can help you ensure that you’re investing in the stock, marketing, and other preparations that you need. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can boost sales forecasting by being able to interpret and analyze data much faster than humans, especially when it comes to raw numbers such as sales. Accurate sales forecasts can be vital as if you’re incorrect, you could be missing sales that you might be able to capitalize on, or you might invest too much and not make as much of a profit as you should.
Enhancing customer service
Of course, if you’re really trying to maximize those sales, then one place you can’t afford to hold back is through your customer service. Helping customers answer their queries, solving their problems, and pointing them in the right direction can help you turn a lost wanderer into a sale. On websites, such as e-commerce sites or service pages, this can be done through in-window chat widgets. However, a lot of small businesses aren’t able to afford the manpower to have someone on call to answer questions at all times, and this is where chatbot software can really come in handy. Chatbot software might be one of the oldest cases of small businesses using AI and, as AI has developed and become more sophisticated, it is also one of the cases that has seen the most in terms of improvement, too.
Improving your relationship with your customers
While the chatbots and customer service solutions mentioned above can ensure that your customer has a pleasant interaction with your business, customer relationship management tools take that a step further, making sure that every interaction is part of a planned and measured approach to ease your customer’s journey through your services as best as possible and, in turn, increasing the likelihood of referrals, repeat sales, and more. AI is able to help CRM solutions by more efficiently collecting and analyzing customer behavior and data, and making offers, such as sales incentives like deals, based on their personal shopping history and habits. It can also combine raw data from across all customers to give a better understanding of trends that you can use.
Project management
If you have a team, even if it’s of as little as four more people, who are working together on a project, then you need to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Project management tools are designed for just that, ensuring that collaborative workflows are built, deliveries can be tracked across the board, and you have a solid understanding of the chain of productivity, and who might be relying on who else to get their own part of the project done. A lot of project management tools are using AI nowadays, helping to keep tasks within the project on track without the need for human intervention.
Improving employee productivity
While project management can be useful for ensuring that groups of employees are able to work effectively together, it’s also important to make sure that employees are able to remain productive with their own workload, as well. Small business AI productivity tools are helping individuals do this by, for instance, reducing the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that your team has to take care of, streamlining their admin work, improving their time management, and even doing things like providing actionable notes on meetings so that they can more quickly get started on their work after a check-in. As such, these productivity tools can act much like a personal assistant to your employees, ensuring that they’re able to get on with their work with as little interruption and difficulty as possible.
Hiring candidates
Bringing the right people onto your team is one of the most important tasks any business owner or manager can do, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming. Going through every resume that comes your way, sitting through interviews, and vetting every potential hire can take a lot of time, but it has to be done to ensure that you’re bringing on those best suited to the role. AI software is starting to improve this process, using data based on past successful hires to scan through resumes and prioritize them in the order of those who are most likely to fit the needs of the position, decreasing the sheer amount of time and work the recruitment process normally takes.
AI is already here, and it’s only going to get more integrated into the business world as time goes on. Consider which of the above applications could see your business benefiting, and think about whether it’s time to take the AI’s side.