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This article discusses the prominent role of AI for small businesses and offers tips on choosing a suitable artificial intelligence software.
Research reveals 80% of top brands have invested in some form of artificial intelligence (AI). This is significant because using AI for business brings immense benefits. For example, 44% of respondents in a study reported saving costs through AI.
Also, 61% of employees say AI increases their workflow, and 49% say it enhances their decision-making. Therefore, introducing artificial intelligence to your business strategy helps to maximize cost and enhance productivity, among other benefits.
However, although AI is now crucial to business success, many companies looking to introduce it into their marketing efforts wonder how it will help them grow. This article discusses the prominent role of AI for small businesses and offers tips on choosing a suitable artificial intelligence software.
Let’s get started by defining what artificial intelligence means for businesses.
What is artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is a computer or robot's ability to perform human-related tasks. Therefore, AI for businesses uses intelligent computer software with human-life capabilities to perform administrative, financial, or customer service-related activities. Ultimately, its major goal is to streamline processes by relieving your workload.
Therefore, by adopting AI, you can scale your business by maximizing time and resources. Levity’s guide on AI in small businesses discusses how to leverage AI's potential for growth.
Different types of AI capabilities
Choosing the right type of artificial intelligence involves understanding the major categories of AI capabilities to see how they can benefit your organization. So, let's look at the different types of AI available.
1. Perceptual AI
Perceptual AI is also known as cognitive AI. It imitates the cognitive responsibilities of human beings. Its major role is enabling human-computer interaction (HCI). A practical example is Apple's Siri, where an intelligent computer tool understands human language and speech, allowing people to initiate commands without any coding knowledge.
2. Autonomous AI
Autonomous AI is commonly used for automobiles. It is part of several machine learning types that power robots, machines, and other automobiles. As a result, these types of AI react to various cases and collaborate to perform tasks with the least human effort.
3. Business AI
Business AI is also known as decision AI. This type of artificial intelligence is used by personalities in several domains and is the most varied because it performs different functions. This includes dynamic pricing, fraud detection, and automated design evaluation.
However, although business AI performs activities, its primary aim is to help brands make improved decisions. It does this through efficient reporting, algorithm trading, and other benefits.
4. Internet AI
Also known as personalization AI, internet artificial intelligence uses digital trails to gather data and understand customers’ preferences and needs to customize their experiences. For example, brands can recommend and suggest specific services and products to individuals based on the internet AI report.
What is the role of AI for small businesses?
Artificial intelligence plays several roles for small digital businesses. Let’s examine them below:
1. It improves the customer experience
Customer experience plays a prominent role in boosting user satisfaction and growing businesses. Research states 62% of consumers are willing to use AI to enhance the buying process, revealing how critical it is to improving users' interactions with brands.
For instance, a perceptual AI boosts consumer engagement and provides more interactive customer-brand experiences. Therefore, introducing perpetual AI chatbots and virtual assistants to your marketing plan will help you engage and connect faster with customers, improving their journey.
Personalization AI is also an excellent way to provide a positive customer experience for buyers. This is because relevant suggestions and recommendations help buyers maximize their time and shop only for relevant items. Also, it projects a positive brand impression as consumers see you as a customer-centric business that pays attention to their needs and expectations.
Besides providing data for tailored suggestions, using perceptual and personalization artificial intelligence helps you discover the challenges on your site. They offer useful data and analytics to evaluate consumers' activities on websites. By doing this, you'll identify glitches and make improvements for seamless experiences.
2. It increases efficiency
As a small business owner, one of the best things you can do is to grow your company and boost efficiency. This involves enhancing productivity, reducing costs, etc. Thankfully, AI offers tons of resources to improve workflow and cut costs. 51% of companies save costs with AI, and 56% increase productivity by automating repetitive tasks.
Many intelligent computers are designed to speed up processes through automation. For example, artificial intelligence software with hiring and recruiting capabilities automates recruitment activities, making you deliver results efficiently.
Also, streamlining communication processes makes it easier to engage website visitors as you don't have to be present to answer questions. The chatbot manages the conversation, enabling a quick response rate and fostering engagements while you handle other business matters.
As a result, you'll enjoy the perks of productivity and efficiency, maximizing time, resources, and efforts to grow your brand.
3. It increases revenue
Profitable businesses work with data to gain accurate insights for excellent decision-making. Business AI is a useful tool to acquire valuable information about customers. Rather than run the organization on hypotheses, artificial intelligence software gives you a detailed insight into the organization's achievements, what it's lacking, and how to improve.
Monitoring performance sets you on track, and by doing this, you know exactly where your business is lagging and what you must do to improve. This allows you to make forward-thinking decisions to generate more revenue.
4. It promotes business’s cybersecurity
Artificial intelligence improves a business's cybersecurity by identifying potential threats and attacks on your business. It offers strict activity monitoring that tracks suspicious activities, so you can take proactive measures against them. Depending on their functions and configurations, AI reacts quickly to these threats by restricting suspicious activity on your platform or eliminating them.
This saves organizations from data breaches that put companies and their customers' sensitive information at risk. More so, it reduces the workload for IT specialists as it automates some of their tasks.
5. It promotes positive relationships
Artificial intelligence software enhances buyers' journeys through chatbots, virtual assistants, autoresponders, etc. As a result, it fosters positive relationships because users enjoy active responses and feedback on their questions.
AI also helps to draw leads further into the sales funnel. You can follow up on conversations to turn prospects into customers through automated emails and chats. Again, this saves costs by helping you generate buyers organically. It also boosts loyalty by leveraging existing relationships to keep customers returning.
How to choose a suitable AI for your business
AI tools offer several functions, so choosing the most appropriate for your business is critical. Below are the factors to consider when selecting the best AI for your brand.
1. Identify the AI that meets your project's requirements
The first step to selecting the right AI for your organization is to conduct research. Identify your business’s current challenges and the right AI to meet its needs.
Do you want to improve your brand’s communication process? Facilitate sales or make better choices? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you determine the business’s current problem and the AI to fix it.
2. Opt for an efficient AI software
The best AI software automates repetitive tasks to make processes easy. Therefore a key step to finding an appropriate software is to test its efficiency.
Does it eliminate monotonous activities and speed up tasks? Ensure to find these out before opting for AI software.
3. Go for an AI solution that integrates with your existing software
A crucial characteristic of excellent AI software is integration. This is because artificial intelligence tools connect with the system you already use to further simplify your activities. You won't have to alternate among several applications because you can link each of them to the AI, making it faster to execute tasks.
4. Opt for an easy-to-use AI software
The best AI software is straightforward to use. They provide a simple user experience by enabling easy setup and usage. You don't have to go through a deep learning curve to get started or navigate its functions because it's intuitive and effortless to use.
Therefore, facilitate your experience and skip rigorous processes by purchasing an artificial intelligence software that is simple to adopt. Most times, this means opting for AI with a user-friendly interface and live training for a seamless onboarding experience.
5. Ensure your AI provides adequate security
Another essential factor to consider is your business's data security. Most artificial intelligence software requires tons of data to function, so it's critical to go for AI that offers maximum protection for your sensitive information. Finally, ensure its security standards and requirements align with your expectations.
Conclusion
AI software is designed to help businesses and organizations simplify tasks. They are critical tools to improve customer experience, boost performance and efficiency, automate tasks, and generate revenue. The software also promotes cyber security and positive relationships.
When selecting an AI software, consider your projects' requirements, business challenges, AI integration features, intuitiveness, and data security capabilities. By considering these factors, you can choose the most appropriate AI technology for your brand.
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