5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Can Help Small Business

Ever get the feeling that we’re living in a science fiction novel these days? It hits me every time I read headlines like AI makes mind-reading possible or A tiny chip implant gives paralyzed the power of telekinesis. While boardrooms are debating the risks of AI advancing too rapidly, I can’t help but feel that, beyond this science-fiction vibe, most of us haven’t embraced the full potential of AI in our daily lives. 

The everyday business routine has yet to tap into the incredible possibilities AI brings to the table. Right now, the most tangible AI-related risk for the average person might just be falling behind our more AI-savvy colleagues. Arguably, there’s nowhere that staying current (and preferably being ahead of the curve) is more important than in small business. With Small Business Saturday around the corner, here are five ways AI can improve the efficiency and profitability of your business.

Keep an Eye on Competitors 

Being a small business owner, you need to keep an eye on a bunch of things—finances, employees, vendors, taxes, customer satisfaction, marketing, trends—the list goes on. That makes how many eyes? I’ve lost count, but chances are you’re not a spider and don’t have as many.

And let’s not forget another crucial thing SMB owners need to keep a close eye on—their competitors. Like it or not, If you want to stay afloat and grow you’ve got to know what they’re doing. But before you post a job ad for an assistant manager who you can put on a competitor watch, check out Browse AI. 

This AI-powered data extraction tool can monitor websites for you and send an email notification whenever something changes. Stay in the loop about your competitors’ new products and updates without spending one second on their website! Another cool use case is that you can get live inventory from your suppliers instead of requesting regular updates from them. 

Boost Your Online Presence

In today’s overcrowded business world, online presence isn’t optional. If you want to flourish as a business, you’ve got to attract eyeballs via social media, blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos—you name it. But how on earth are you supposed to make time for content marketing with everything else you need to do? Hiring a social media manager, a copywriter, and a video editor is one option; another is to pay a content marketing agency. Both have their pros and cons, but what if the budget for content marketing is currently zero?  

Rather than putting the whole thing off until better times, you could try using AI tools. Of course, it’s not the same as having an in-house team, but it sure beats nothing! Content generation tools like Jasper and Copy AI can write copy for your blog and social media posts while Spin Rewriter will rewrite the existing content in seconds. Remarkable tools like Runway can generate jaw-dropping art and landing pages and edit videos in ways that once required serious skills and top-notch video editors. If you lack the resources to shoot videos and have nothing to edit, Runway can generate the whole thing from scratch too.

Keep Paperwork in Check 

Document-related tasks, no matter how tedious, are inevitable in any line of work. Like many dreary but unavoidable things in life, paperwork can become a nightmare if managed poorly. Plus, if your business doesn’t have an office in a traditional sense with printer-scanner machines, paperwork might start managing you, for example, making you set aside some budget for a printer-scanner or go to a print shop when you need to scan. 

The good news is you don’t have to do either of those things. All you need is an AI-charged PDF scanner app. iScanner is an app that turns your smartphone into a scanner machine that can digitize at 300 dpi and allows you to sign from your phone. On top of that, iScanner is so loaded with AI algorithms that AI-scanner might be a better name for it. From the deletion of accidental fingertips to the unblurring of out-of-focus documents, AI accompanies every step of the scanning process. Even the shutter is pressed by AI so you don’t have to bother. 

But AI does more—apart from scanning, it can help you process the actual content of your documents. Need to find a piece of info in a lengthy doc? Need to find a doc whose name you don’t know among hundreds of others? Need to check that all the details are accurate in a legal contract? All these things can be done in seconds by the app’s AI. With the added benefit of cross-platform file sync, you can ensure you never waste time on paperwork or lose a document again.

Calls and Meetings Made Easier

How many video calls a day can a person hold before their brains waive a white flag? Even if you’re a business-meeting ninja, after a certain number of calls you start losing the thread of the conversation and become glassy-eyed. So what can you do if limiting the number of daily calls isn’t an option? 

AI can’t yet hold business negotiations on your behalf but it can serve as a stenographer that never gets tired, makes mistakes, or asks for a pay raise. An AI-powered tool like Otter.AI or Loom will create transcripts of your calls with all the lines attributed to individual callers. Focus on more important things or let your mind wander a little while meeting minutes are writing themselves. 

Emails 

Envy people with zero unread in their inbox? I do (and honestly, who are those people?!) Managing your emails gets more hectic as you grow as a business owner. But the beauty of living in 2023 is that our overflowing inbox and drafts to be written no longer need to be a source of annoyance. You can leverage AI to finally get your inbox under control without having to hire a personal assistant. 

If you need to write a lot of emails, Merlin, an AI-powered Gmail extension, may be just what you’re looking for! Give it a prompt (not necessarily a detailed one) and it will draft an email in no time. Plus, it can change the sentiment in seconds so you don’t have to go out of your way trying to sound polite while turning somebody down. 

Another delightful Gmail extension is called Clearbit and it can save you tons of time on searching for contacts. Need to escalate an issue with a vendor who ignores your emails? Simply type the company name into the search bar and Clearbit will show you the CEO’s email. Peace of cake!