The current state of AI technology and its future have the majority of Americans on the fence, with 80% either minimally trusting or undecided on the trustworthiness of generative AI output.
Setting aside whether or not advancements in AI capabilities are great for the human race, there are other, more practical questions we need to ask. How does AI impact SMB businesses? Can it increase the efficiency and accuracy of operations, lower expenses and expand a company's capabilities?
If the potential applications of AI were harder to define, hesitancy would be understandable—perhaps even recommended. However, many use cases are already proving AI's many possible applications for businesses of all sizes. Momentum continues to grow exponentially, and from what I have experienced, potential gains from integrating cutting-edge artificial intelligence can revolutionize a small or medium-sized company's operations.
Benefits Of Business AI
There are various accessible AI tools that can be applied in departments throughout a company, from sales to marketing to accounting and more. These tools can provide time-saving, accuracy-increasing a number of areas.
• Analysis: When an AI system is given the deepest wells of data to mine, its capabilities can grow in direct correlation due to the evolution of machine learning. I have found AI's ability to provide data-driven and predictive analysis to be particularly effective in sales forecasting and personalized marketing.
• Customer Care: Powered by AI technology, chatbots are becoming a common first line of engagement with customers because they typically require less manual labor while also speeding up initial communication and information delivery.
• Marketing Efforts: Marketing departments have many ways to profit from AI capabilities, particularly content creation. AI software can generate content for blogs, social media, newsletters, etc. It is important, however, to have a human touch involved in the final piece, as purely AI-generated content can still contain factual errors or come across as too mechanical to readers.
• Operational Efficiency: Many tasks can be accomplished entirely by AI software or machines running on the software. This shift can free employees from labor-intensive, time-consuming responsibilities so they can focus on more complex, integral tasks.
• Recommendation Algorithms: With the right data sets and proper machine learning (a cornerstone of modern AI), recommendation algorithms can successfully guide customers to actions they're likely to respond to positively.
This glimpse at current and imminent applications reflects how AI technology can sharpen and expand upon individual and companywide capabilities. It is important to note, however, that every situation is unique, whether in size, industry, scope or operational nature. Many companies may find it prudent to pass on AI technology, if only in the short term, particularly if they currently lack a robust data collection process, without which many features of AI will be extremely limited due to the nature of data analysis.
Similarly, the integration would be severely hindered without adequate financial resources, personnel and equipment. In this scenario, there might be the need but not the ability, or the ability but no need at the time. Leadership must assess their current operations and future aspirations to determine the right timing.
AI tools and services that can benefit small businesses
Midjorney - currently the best photo generator
Midjourney is a platform for generating photos. Similar to ChatGPT, Midjorney generates brand new photos based on a well-written command. This tool will prove to be a very interesting photo creation tool for creating websites and social media content in the near future.
Poised - AI trainer for communication
Poised---AI-coach-for-communication
Poised is a free (for now) AI tool that helps you practice communication. An AI trainer to help you gain confidence for future online meetings or social media shots.
MURF AI - Speech generator
MURF-AI---Speech-generator
Murf AI is a human voice generator. All you need is to type the text and choose the desired voice (they offer various voices, male or female, serious or funny voices, the voice of a teacher, trainer, presenter or user support)
Synthesia AI - creates videos from plain text in just a few minutes. They currently support 120 languages and are one of the top-rated AI platforms for generating text-based video content.
Stock AI - Free AI generated photos
Stock-AI-Free-AI-Generated-Photos
Stock AI - is a site that offers free photos generated by artificial intelligence. Stock sites with free or paid photos have been very popular with graphic and web designers, content creators and various entrepreneurs until now, and AI photography threatens to destroy an entire industry of professional photographers.
Texti - AI Text Generator, very similar to ChatGPT only as an add-on to your internet browser. Very popular as a Chrome extension.
Browse AI is an online AI scraper. Scraping is the downloading and monitoring of data from a website. Until now, in order to download or monitor data from other people's sites, we needed the services of developers.
The COM - Automated website creation
The COM - is a site that generates websites based on artificial intelligence.
Texta-AI-creator-SEO-articles
Texta - is another AI text generator that writes optimized texts for internet search engines (SEO) based on a text command. They have support for 27 languages.
Supercreator AI – Artificial intelligence that helps create short video content. We all know how popular this type of video clip is on social media. Reels and Stories with Supercreator are created up to 10x faster.
They can help you generate high-quality text.
these tools are readily available and useful for those looking for ways to save time and improve their content. If you're looking for an effective way to improve your marketing, you should definitely try one of these AI copywriting tools.
WriteSonic – is an AI writer that creates SEO-friendly content for blogs, Facebook ads, Google ads and Shopify for free. This paraphrasing tool allows you to instantly paraphrase entire articles.
Copy.ai - Get great copy that sells. Copy.ai is an AI-powered copywriter that generates high-quality copy for your business. Get started for free, no credit card required! Marketing simplified!
Source: Forbes
The Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs List: 2023
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