Seven Ways to Use AI in Small Business in 2024

The Internet is awash with ways AI (artificial intelligence) can streamline your business, save you time and save you money. But what does this look like in the real world for small business owners? While this isn’t an exhaustive list, we take a look at some of the most useful AI tools out there for small businesses that are practical and effective.

AI for customer service

Great customer service can be a standout feature of any business. However, delivering a high level of service is labour-intensive. This load can be lightened with AI-powered chatbots on websites and social media platforms, to chat with customers in real time, solve problems, place orders and even give product recommendations. Some great platforms for AI chatbots include Zendesk, HubSpot and Zoho SalesIQ.

AI for analysing customer insights

Understanding customer data and feedback is essential for small businesses to continually grow. However, data used to gain these insights is often ‘siloed’ in different systems, across different parts of the business. AI-powered analysis tools can examine customer reviews, social media mentions, and survey responses to uncover valuable insights into customer preferences and feedback. These insights can then be used in product development and marketing campaigns to more easily get customer attention and boost satisfaction.

Some great platforms for analysing customer sentiment are Brand24, Hi-Tech BPO and Meaning Cloud.

AI for transcription and notetaking

Are your days full of meetings? AI can help you streamline the process of notetaking and transcription with helpful apps like Otter.ai. By automatically transcribing meetings accurately, you save time revisiting and tidying notes. With collaboration features you can easily share notes with the rest of your team, as well as quickly going back through past notes by keywords or speaker tags.  

AI for copywriting

Have you needed to write copy for your website, an email or social media post but been confronted with a blank page and not known where to start? Large Learning Models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s Chat-GPT are here to help. Simply ask for the content you need, as specifically as possible. For example, if you need a blog on the price of bananas in Queensland, ask ‘Please write me a blog post 800 words in length on the topic of the price of bananas in Queensland, using the top SEO keywords.’ You’ll receive a swift reply that matches your description. To make sure the content is in the tone of voice of your brand, it’s highly recommended that you edit the copy, as well as fact check and expand on any additional points to make sure the content is truly unique and engaging. If the content isn’t what you expected, you can ask for it to be revised, for example, with a more casual tone of voice, or incorporating more examples to make the content easier to understand.

AI product photography

Product imagery for a website, social media or printed publications must be of a high standard to gain your audience’s attention, build a sense of quality and drive sales. While product photography has previously been limited to a photographer and studio set up, your smart phone can now help you achieve top quality product photography with the help of smart phone apps, at a fraction of the price. Apps like Bazaart, Photoroom and Photo Studio by Square can help you to edit lighting, backgrounds, isolate products and more, all from images taken with your smart phone.

AI image generation

Most marketers have spent a good portion of their working lives scrolling through stock photo libraries for that elusive perfect image. This may be a thing of the past with generative AI image platforms, which can help you build an image from scratch or tweak what you already have to make it perfect. Some great AI image generators are DALL·E 3 (for ease of use), Midjourney (for stunning AI images), Adobe Firefly for adding AI generated images into your photos and Generative AI by Getty for commercially safe images.

AI headshots

Need a professional headshot for yourself or your team members? If you’ve had a professional headshot taken before, they can be expensive and even then, you might not be happy with the result. AI corporate headshots are a great, low-cost alternative. Using an AI headshot generator platform, you’ll be asked to upload clear images of yourself that the platform will use to generate your headshots. Then, you’ll be given anywhere from 20 to 100 alternatives to choose from in a variety of scenarios, from corporate to casual, so you can choose the image for the purpose you need. And the best part? The cost is a fraction of a professional photographer.

When choosing your headshot, you might be presented with images that look more ‘Photoshopped’ than others, so be sure to select images that accurately represent you. Online dating has taught us how to spot a fake photo a mile away, and these headshots are no different! Some great platforms are Aragon.AI, Headshot Pro and Fotor.

Need some help with AI in your small business?

Get in touch! We can help you identify ways to use AI to make your life easier, so you can get back to running your business.