The Best AI Tools Available for Your Business

Business.

We know it well.

But here’s the thing about business: it doesn’t stand still for a second, especially in the world of digital. One minute you’re chucking out your old fax machine, and the next, you’re having a major shareholder meeting over Zoom with every attendee sitting at home in their jammies.

The major player right now? AI.

In the past few months, Artificial Intelligence has made astounding leaps in innovation and publicity. Whether you welcome the robot revolution or you’re raging against the rise of the machines, here’s a fact: you need to know what’s available, and how both you and your competitors could be using the tech.

No matter the task, here’s the essential AI rundown.

1. Chatbots

Sure, chatbots have been around forever. In the past, they’ve had a bit of a shaky reputation, often acting as slightly dense human stand-ins that do nothing except block you from talking to an actual person.

Well, say goodbye to the era of being told “Sorry, I can’t find what you’re looking for!” for the eighth time. Chatbots are now capable of…

• Holding realistic conversations with advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) tech.
• Personalisation, to give your customer a bespoke experience.
• Communicating in many different languages.
• Advanced machine learning, to allowing them to improve, iterate and step up their game over time.

Bottom line: clunky bot conversations are steadily going the way of the fax. Today’s chatbots are ready to step in as your shop-front representative online, 24/7.

2. Enhancing Video and Graphics

While a lot of the groundwork is still human work, AI tools have made some impressive leaps in how they can support and sharpen the artistic experience.

Take Canva, for example; an online editing program known for being simple and accessible. AI can suggest layouts, editing flourishes, lighting changes and other elements to make your work pop. Adobe Photoshop now comes with its own more powerful AI tools, augmenting your visual projects by smartly snipping out unwanted objects in a photo, pinpointing selections of certain elements, and slicing out backgrounds. 

It’s not just all about still images, either. AI-powered apps such as Artisto can help add elements to video that take some of the more tedious work away from the editing process, including filters and photo effects.

Bottom line: if there’s a tedious part of the digital creative process you hate, there’s probably an AI tool to make it a little easier.

(and if there’s not, just give it a year or two)

3. Content Writing & Editing

Yep, we get it.

In fact, the person typing this sentence happens to be a human who a) quite likes writing, and b) would prefer it if humans didn’t get completely booted out of the writing process by machines.

But we’re not speculating on the future, because in the here and now, there are a ton of helpful AI writing tools to streamline the creation of content – especially the less glamorous parts of the process.

Grammarly is a well-known smart AI writing program that can proofread your work, suggest changes to sentence structure and even find small errors such as repeating a word too often. 

Copy.ai takes things a little further in generating marketing copy, social media taglines, catchy slogans and more. Even if you don’t end up using what the program cooks up, it can be a huge help for inspiration to get you started.

AiReply can be your go-to for drafting emails, allowing you to craft flawless messages in seconds.

Bottom line: the tech is here, and it’s far from composing a Nobel Prize-winning novel. Learn to work with the tech, and it can really help sand the edges off the harder parts of editing, as well as generating ideas.

4. Marketing

To a casual observer, digital marketing can seem more like art than science: scanning data, tweaking algorithms, crossing your fingers and hoping for bigger numbers next time. Boom, you’re marketing. Digitally.

It’s a tad more complex in practice, but there’s still a lot of number crunching and juggling sets of data to make sure you’re using it all correctly. This is where AI can step in and make a difference, taking on some of the more grating tasks, analysing customer data and making suggestions based on its findings.

Google already has some of this set up in its platforms with a bunch of automations that’ll put your ads in front of the best possible audience, generate ads based on pre-existing assets, and improve as they learn. You’ve also probably seen ads that seem oddly tailored to your wants and needs; that’s smart AI using data to suggest products that you might find interesting.

Bottom line: while the human connection is vital to marketing, AI is here to help with the tech stuff. Learn to use the automation that Google Ads and other platforms already have, and your marketing campaigns will practically build themselves.*

(*not really. But AI will definitely give your campaigns a competitive edge and help them to improve a lot faster)

5. …and almost everything else

If there’s data involved, then there’s AI help available. AI can do a lot of things, but crunching numbers, finding patterns and suggesting improvements are all areas of specialty. 

A few you may not have considered: 

HR: Ditch the lengthy resume screening process, with AI tools that can intelligently weed out unsuitable candidates, or source the perfect talent for any role.

Finance: AI and finance go together like a sunny day and a Bunnings snag. To be clear, we don’t recommend wholesale handing over control of your business accounts to an algorithm. However, AI tools can help spot mistakes, detect suspicious activity and pinpoint areas where you could save money.

Cybersecurity: As online security becomes more complex, so does cyber crime. AI tools can maintain a watchful eye on security updates, identify what qualifies as malware, automatically update your security measures, and sift through mounds of user data to let you jump straight to a solution.

The ultimate bottom line?

AI isn’t ‘coming soon’.

It didn’t spring up overnight.

It’s been here for a while, iterating and getting smarter, and when it comes to using AI tools, it’s not a case of ‘if’ or even ‘when’. It’s about getting better at using the tools you already have.

For a good start, pick a business task, preferably one you don’t enjoy. There’s a very good chance that some smart folks have crafted an AI tool that can help streamline the process. After that comes the most important part: you now have more time for the stuff you actually like, and that actually matters. 

The best gift AI can give you is time. Use it wisely!

(or take an extra coffee break. We’re not judging)

Looking to explore what AI tech can do for your business?

Our team of developers have skills across the board, tailor-made for business success.

Let’s chat!