7 AI Technology Benefits For Small Businesses

When people think of artificial intelligence, the first thing that probably comes to mind is highly complex robots that perform extraordinary tasks. It isn’t until you take a closer look at the technology we use on a daily basis that we realize AI is all around us! From the suggested products on Amazon to the spam filter on your email account, AI affects our daily lives whether we realize it or not.

This begs the question of how artificial intelligence can be incorporated into our small businesses and help us operate more efficiently and effectively. To gain more insight, we’ve interviewed seven small business leaders and asked them how other small businesses can benefit from implementing a variety of these tools in their organization. If you are looking for ideas on how to innovate and reduce your operational costs, we just may have the answer you’ve been looking for.

Improve Product Recommendations

Artificial intelligence within the beauty industry has the potential to improve personal recommendations. Each customer has questions and qualities that make them unique. AI can help provide new levels of product personalization so that customers can be more educated on  beauty options, and licensed estheticians can elevate their customer experience. 

Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional

Levels The Playing Field

One question I receive is, “How is a small business supposed to compete with big companies when it comes to SEO marketing?” It’s a valid question, because to be effective with SEO marketing, you need resources. The AI technology benefit for small businesses is that it can level the playing field when it comes to resources. In SEO, AI can comb through keyword research, competitor trends, and website data to produce solid insights for a comprehensive strategy. In other words, AI can be that extra team member that a big company may have, and that a small business needs to succeed. 

Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

Scalable Growth With a Lean Team

The number one benefit for small businesses adopting AI is to help them automate key business tasks and processes (marketing, finance, customer service, ecommerce, operations, etc.) to become even more productive with a lean team. This allows them to scale up growth better, faster and smarter like much larger competitors. 

Lomit Patel, Bestselling Author of LEAN AI

Focus on Implementing Solutions Rather Than Analyzing Data

AI technology can benefit various small businesses in different ways, depending on the industry. In the dental industry, studies at Harvard and MIT have shown that artificial intelligence can  analyze clinical dental data with the goal of improving patient care. That’s just one example of how AI can help a small business focus less on analyzing data and recognizing trends, and more on implementing solutions.

Henry Babichenko, Stomadent Dental Lab 

24/7 Customer Support

Small businesses can save a lot of time and money using AI technology. On the customer support side, AI can help offset costs for customer support staff. Chatbots have gotten very sophisticated and can troubleshoot customer issues, start conversations with customers, and be a customer support resource that’s available 24/7. On the product side, AI can help small businesses automate processes around product recommendations. Many of the leading Ecommerce CMS’s have plugins that automate the product curation process. This makes it easy for shop owners to recommend relevant upsells to their customers.

Husam Machlovi, With Pulp

Meaningful Content

AI tools are becoming more accessible to small businesses every day. One of the most important ways to use AI is in managing customer relationships. CRM platforms with AI features can help you create a 360-degree view of your customer. You’ll be able to create automated emails with personalized content. That can then send timely and meaningful emails to users. You’ll see a boost in email open rates and conversions.

Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

Fraud Detection

One great benefit of incorporating artificial intelligence into your existing company structure is fraud detection. Machine learning tools can detect user activities that align with past attempts at fraud. IT departments can then use this data to not only catch the cybercriminals, but to establish more effective protection methods for the future. Enterprises of all types and sizes can be targeted for fraud, making fraud detection AI a worthwhile investment.

Gene Locklear, Entrust Solutions

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Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing addresses the technology needs of small businesses, which are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees and/or less than $7 million in annual sales.

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