As you probably know, Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has been around for many years in some capacity, had a major breakout year in 2023. As tools like ChatGPT and others have dominated headlines, people have taken notice. Some fear they will be put out of work, but many business owners are excited about the possibilities of such technology for their business, and with good reason. Modern AI is extremely powerful and is already making a giant impact in the business world. Following are just a few areas in which AI is playing a key role.
Automation
Automation is one of the big benefits of AI for businesses, and that means increased efficiency. AI can potentially save you and your employees from the tedium of many mundane tasks, freeing you up for bigger and better things. If you have a staff made up of great talent, they can certainly use their skills more effectively if you assign necessary but unexciting tasks to AI. Then, get your team more involved in improving the company.
Marketing and Sales
AI can be used for a variety of marketing and sales tasks. It can write copy, create guides, and analyze customer feedback, and it can also be used for sales chatbots. Use it to create personalized marketing campaigns with messages that resonate with customers as it utilizes its powerful understanding of data. Similar personalization can be used for sales and leads. Sales teams can also use it to quickly adapt to changing buyer needs, access real-time data to ensure accuracy and validity, and gather information from multiple platforms.
Customer Service
Businesses are using AI to handle a plethora of customer service-related tasks beyond chatbots. For example, they're using agent-assist technology, which as TechTarget explains, "uses AI to automatically interpret what the customer is asking, search knowledge articles and display them on the customer service agent's screen while they're on the call."*
Customer self-service is another example. This is when a customer is able to get the help they need without having to speak with a customer service representative. AI can help customers find the information they need in a way that's convenient for them.
Inventory Management
Some businesses are taking advantage of AI for managing inventory. For example, you can use it to keep track of inventory and automatically update your online store.
"Machine Learning, a subset of AI, uses image recognition abilities to increase efficiency and productivity across a wide variety of processes. One example of this is inventory management," explains Hanna Kleinings, Customer Operations Manager at Levity.** "It's as simple as uploading image data to an AI tool that can detect defects, or categorize and label the images. You can even connect these apps to your existing tool stack or online shop, meaning the labels are automatically assigned."
Human Resources
In the Human Resources realm, AI can analyze candidates and help HR managers gain more insight into potential hires or help them put existing employees into roles that are best suited for them. It can even help a company improve its diversity and inclusion.
Accounting
AI can perform accounting functions, freeing up businesses without dedicated accountants to spend more of their valuable time and resources elsewhere. For those with dedicated accountants, it can also free up the accountant's time to focus more on other financial opportunities. AI can handle tasks, at least in part, like tax preparation, budget forecasting, data entry, policy enforcement, and fraud risk reduction.
Utility
AI can make life easier for you and your employees by simply being useful. McKinsey shares some great examples of this such as:
- Optimize employees’ communication (ie. automate email responses and text translation or change tone or wording of text)
- Create business presentations based on text prompts, including visualizations from text
- Synthesize a summary from text, slide decks, or online video meetings.***
It's still the early stages for modern artificial intelligence, and we're already seeing incredibly powerful use cases. As the technologies progress, they will become more ingrained in various aspects of business.
*https://www.techtarget.com/searchcustomerexperience/feature/10-examples-of-AI-in-customer-service
**https://www.techtarget.com/searchcustomerexperience/feature/10-examples-of-AI-in-customer-service
