Are you ready for the future? AI made simple for SMEs

AI is the future. We all keep hearing this but are unsure what to do about it.

AI is incredibly complex and off putting. But don’t fret. Let us guide you through, step-by-step.

Why Use AI for Your Business?

Advantages of AI for Small Businesses

Efficiency: AI enhances employee productivity by minimising the time spent on routine tasks.
Cost reduction: AI tools can detect potential risks or mistakes (such as duplicate payments) by spotting anomalies in data, thus saving money and mitigating risk.
Improved customer experience: AI chatbots and automated customer service can decrease the number of calls and inquiries, allowing your team to focus on more complex customer issues.
Expanded growth prospects: Numerous AI applications utilise machine learning algorithms, which can deliver a deeper insight into customer behaviour through pattern recognition that evolves over time. This can result in increased sales and revenue growth.
Enhanced decision-making: AI can analyse and interpret large volumes of essential business data to support more effective problem-solving.

AI Saves Time and Money

Small businesses that use AI have seen significant savings in time and costs. The following statistics come from small business owners:

41% have used AI to shift their own and their employees’ time to more valuable tasks
39% have invested in AI tools for better customer engagement and retention
37% have used savings from AI to invest in other new technologies 36% have kept prices stable for customers despite inflation
34% have used savings to pursue business growth opportunities
25% have used savings to increase wages and benefits
25% have set aside savings for emergencies or other purposes
20% have used savings to pay off debt faster

AI is an incredible lever for your business growth.

Implement AI Into Daily Workflows

Scheduling: Motion is a great AI tool for scheduling meetings and tasks for your whole team in one place. The key benefit of Motion is that its AI will reorganise your entire schedule if a last second meeting throws your plans. You can even block out periods for admin or writing so people on your team can’t book meetings with you during that time.
SEO: MarketMuse highlights subject areas lacking content on Google, recommends underserved keywords and offers advice on how to improve your website copy to rank higher on Google and increase your revenue.
Research: Perplexity is a phenomenal research partner that scours academic papers, YouTube, Reddit and articles to find up-to-date data on whatever you are researching.
Brainstorming: ChatGPT is best for brainstorming. A simple prompt such as ‘generate 10 interesting and little-known facts about AI’ can inspire an entire article or prompt further research.

Challenges with AI

Incorrect or unreliable results: AI tools might produce misleading outcomes due to limited or inappropriate training data, leading to “hallucinations.” Some generative AI tools may need human review to ensure accuracy.
Data privacy and security: The legal rules concerning AI data privacy are evolving, posing concerns about personal data use and security as AI models require data for training.
Bias and ethical concerns: AI models can perpetuate existing discrimination patterns. For instance, an experimental AI recruitment software developed by Amazon displayed bias against women due to its training data.
Employee training: It can be challenging to keep pace with AI advancements and train employees accordingly due to the rapid evolution of AI technology.
Potential job displacement: Replacing human workers with AI can lead to job losses and damage company culture. Be cautious about replacing humans, as remaining staff may leave.

This astounding piece was created by AI. Use AI art in your marketing or slideshows.

Writing

ChatGPT is a popular option. It creates content to suit your business requirements and matches your style of writing. Other AI writing assistants include Google Bard, copy.ai, and Jasper.ai.
Happy Scribe automatically generates transcripts when you upload audio or video files.
Otter.ai is another transcription tool that converts video and audio (e.g., podcasts) into text. It also serves as a note-taker, recording online meetings and emailing you the main points.
Grammarly is a widely-used writing assistant that checks for spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. GrammarlyGO generates drafts quickly, tailored to your writing style. Grammarly also detects plagiarism.
HubSpot’s AI-powered content management software assists in creating, managing, and distributing personalised content for your audience.

Video Production

Lumen5 enables you to produce videos from scratch or transform written content into videos.
Submagic can craft short videos with effects like zoom, captions, sound effects, and descriptions.
Pictory lets you quickly turn any content into a video.
Murf converts text to speech, offering professional voice overs using natural AI voices.

Recruitment

Skillate provides AI-driven solutions for all recruitment stages, including crafting job descriptions, reviewing CVs, and arranging interviews.
Entelo leverages data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to help companies identify, engage, and hire top talent more efficiently.
HireVue is a video interviewing and assessment platform that uses artificial intelligence to streamline the hiring process by evaluating candidates’ skills and competencies through video interviews and game-based assessments.

Customer Support

ChatBot interacts with customers online, answers their queries, and assists them through the buying process.
ChatSpot by HubSpot is a conversational chatbot that integrates with HubSpot’s CRM, helping sales and marketing teams be more efficient.
SecondBrain allows you to create bots with detailed knowledge of your business to offer real-time support to customers.

Which AI tool are you going to try? Let us know in the comments below.

Tony Pathrose is our AI expert. Have a chat with him about how AI can accelerate your business goals.