How Can Small Businesses Utilize the Power Of AI?

AI, the next digital revolution is providing unimaginable possibilities to every sector of the industry. Be it transportation, information technology, hospitality, healthcare, and much more, AI is making entrepreneurs prepare for what’s next to come and boost their business performances.

As technology opens the door towards data and automation, opportunities are emerging from every sphere to build new insights on businesses of all sizes and shapes. This opportunity especially helps small businesses to harness the power of AI and witness improvements in their performance exponentially. According to a survey, nearly 29.5% of small and medium business owners have talked in favor of AI and its numerous benefits on businesses.

However, AI technology isn’t just an asset for Fortune 500 companies with billions of dollars in hand. With this modern-day technology, you can aid the operations of your employees and gain a competitive advantage in your industry.

In today’s start-up era, you don’t have to be a unicorn company to enjoy the benefits and efficiency offered by AI!

So, instead of fearing robots invading humans, start recognizing AI as a way to transform your business for a better tomorrow. According to the stats given below, AI solutions can convert your small business into a screaming success:

• Nearly 50% of executives believe that the adoption of AI in business helps in the enhancement of products.
• According to Statista, the major proportion of salespeople say that AI is important for email marketing and forecasting.
• Approximately 37% of small businesses consider lack of expertise as the major problem with the adoption of AI in business.
• Forbes reports states that more than 29% of small businesses have already adopted the power of AI in their operations.

As the figures state, AI is about making your employees more efficient and effective by allowing them to make better decisions and focus on their core competencies through developing smart tools and mobile apps. With that said, let’s have a look at numerous ways in which small businesses can utilize AI.

1. Smarter and Faster Hiring

As many small businesses don’t have a large volume of resources (Brand recognition or large networks) like big companies, the task of finding and recruiting talent is still a challenge for them. With the help of AI, they can make their hiring procedure even more lenient.

A single recruiter might not get sufficient time to evaluate each application manually in a small business. Using AI and machine learning algorithms, small businesses can determine the type of processes that result in the best possible hire.

For instance, the task of finding potential candidates, reaching out to them, and conducting an initial screening test for a specific role can be easily automated using AI. It can screen thousands of applications at once while allowing you to focus on the most promising candidates.

2. Automatic Reporting Procedure

To make sure you make important business decisions effectively, small businesses need to have a clear understanding of the data that they monitor and report. Earlier, a spreadsheet to track progress used to be more than enough as data was gathered every day.

However, now there’s a need for professional tools that can process a huge amount of information and automatically report on business processes and data. In easy words, the use of AI in reporting processes is becoming a standard in the corporate world.

Moreover, as you may already know, tracking key performance indicators and sending daily or weekly reports allows small businesses to focus on data while eliminating the additional tasks of building spreadsheets.

3. Predictions and Transforming Analytics

By using the capabilities of smart technologies, small businesses can make better and informed decisions based on their strategies backed by online analysis and advanced analytics tools that use predictive analytics models powered by AI.

The best part is that these models don’t require extensive data science skills or advanced IT knowledge to be built. Nowadays, there are several tools and software that allow you to make these models with ease.

In this way, a small business can have a clear understanding of what to expect from the future and shape its strategies accordingly to achieve higher profits and performance. The more volume of data you manage, analyze, and monitor, the better will be your business’s decision-making process.

4. Boost in Cybersecurity

As technology advances, so does the threat to security increases each day. According to various reports, 43% of cyber-attacks target small businesses, out of which within six months, 60% of small businesses victim to the attack goes out of business. 

Digital data theft has become a common and most reported fraud. It is imperative for businesses of all sizes and shapes to have powerful cybersecurity. Most small businesses lack a dedicated security team, which increases the risk of cybersecurity theft.

Bringing AI together with Cybersecurity will help in removing vulnerability by analyzing the data, predicting the user behavior, understanding a pattern, and generating a dynamic, real-time, global authentication framework that modifies network access or location privileges.

5. Chatbots

Having a small business means you are more focused on streamlining marketing and customer service. To ease out things and focus on core responsibilities having a chatbot is a good option.

Many companies are partnering with chatbot development agencies for making use of bots through AI in mobile app development because the majority of people use chats in place of calls. Having chatbots helps in understanding the customers and their requirements, and if in any case, a chatbot does not understand the questions posed by customers, then it can be redirected to the team who is into customer support.

AI-enabled chatbots are not only used in customer retention but are also used in increasing sales by providing products and guiding customers through the website.

AI is the Future

Artificial Intelligence helps reduce manual work and supports humans by enhancing their productivity. With that said, it’s essential for small businesses to use machine learning in their business procedures by developing tools and using AI in mobile app development.

Related: Future scope of artificial intelligence

Tools powered by AI can do repetitive jobs in very little time without much effort. Moreover, it’s also very helpful in the marketing of your products and services. There are several AI-based tools that help you to decide on an appropriate marketing budget based on data and insights. Another significant benefit of AI for small business is that it provides them an edge over their competitors in the market and helps them gain insights over their rivals to strategize their way to the marketing of their brand and stand different in the herding crowd.

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