The importance and uses of artificial intelligence in business are top of mind for leading corporations today.
Artificial Intelligence technology benefits big and small businesses as it helps them grow, ensures smarter decision-making, and transforms the field of management.
But how exactly AI affects the business world? How AI can help your business growth? Here, we will answer.
In the post:
- What is AI? Definition.
- Why is artificial intelligence important to business?
- AI role, opportunities, applications, and benefits.
- 10 ways AI can help business: examples and uses
- Popular AI software solutions
- Infographic in PDF
Why Is Artificial Intelligence Important To Business?
Let’s start with the definition.
Artificial Intelligence is the ability of computers to perform tasks that usually people perform. For example, the ability to make decisions, the ability to communicate with users, etc.
In other words, AI is about making machines think and act like humans (or even better).
AI does not replace people in most cases. Instead, it enhances human capabilities and transforms the way we work.
AI works through artificial intelligence software tools.
What is Artificial Intelligence software?
Artificial Intelligence software is software that uses AI technology and special algorithms to automate different tasks.
Companies save time and effort by automating their business processes and enabling their employees to work more productively.
A variety of AI tools for business are used to make the business process much simpler and more effective. For example, software that recommends products to users in an e-commerce shop, chatbots, software that automates content marketing creation, tools that predict sales, etc.
There’s no doubt that AI is a technology that will transform every business, every company, in every industry.
The global artificial intelligence market size is expected to reach $169,411.8 million in 2025 (Source alliedmarketresearch.com)
Every future-oriented business needs an AI understanding and an AI strategy.
Your AI strategy will help you achieve your business goals and create strong competitive advantages.
AI has many benefits and applications in business. It powers customer service, ensures cybersecurity defense, performs data analysis, helps in customer care, reduces energy costs, predicts sales, helps businesses to be more customer-centric, etc.
In addition, “Marketing and sales prioritize AI and machine learning higher than any other department in enterprises today (40%)”. (Source: Forbes)
Now, let’s see some ways AI can create a competitive advantage for your brand, increase efficiency, and drive revenue growth.
How Does AI Work? 10 Ways AI Can Help Your Business
1. Boost Revenue With Product Recommendations
AI is widely used in product recommendation systems.
These are systems that suggest products or information to users based on special data analysis methods.
If you are an online shopper, you see many product recommendations in a day.
Whether it be on an eCommerce website, in advertisements, or in e-mails, a product recommendation aims to facilitate purchase decisions by helping customers find products that meet their needs.
The recommendation can derive from many factors, such as a customer’s purchase history or the behavior of similar users.
Benefits of AI-powered product recommendation systems for business
Example:
The most popular example is the Amazon recommendation system.
Amazon recommends many products from categories you’ve been browsing. The goal is to put products in front of you that you’re likely to click and buy.
Amazon has integrated an AI-powered recommendation system into nearly every part of the purchasing process.
Amazon has a heavy focus on big data analytics and data-driven decision-making.
Popular AI software for product recommendations: Nosto, Recombee, Barilliance, Unbxd, nToklo, and Vue.ai.
2. Chatbots For Enhancing Customer Service
A chatbot is software that imitates human conversation (or a chat) with users over websites, mobile apps, phones, etc. It’s an AI-powered digital assistant that communicates with people.
Today, people want fast, easy, and personalized customer service anytime and anywhere. Chatbots can provide it.
It is a new marketing channel that offers a genuinely personal experience between brands and users.
Chatbots are changing the business and marketing world. They are one of the most promising trends in user interface and customer experience fields.
Key benefits of chatbots for your business:
Examples:
Some of the most famous chatbots are Pop Geo – National Geographic Chatbot, SnapTravel, Wall Street Journal Chatbot, Whole Foods’ Facebook Messenger Bot, BabyCentre UK Bot, Hottel Marriot’s ChatBotler, Cheapflights Chat, and many others.
Popular chatbot software to improve marketing and increase conversations: LivePerson, Botsify, Reply.ai, Aivo, Boost.ai, ManyChat.
3. Create The Best Content Marketing Strategy
An unimaginable number of consumers are looking online for products and services every second. And you need to position your business in front of them.
How? With powerful content marketing!
Content marketing is a marketing technique for attracting, engaging, and delighting customers by delivering valuable content.
Content marketing has many types and forms such as blogs, social media posts, podcasts, videos, infographics, whitepapers, case studies, eBooks, how-to-guides, webinars, email marketing, etc.
The role of Artificial Intelligence in content marketing is growing exponentially.
Artificial intelligence uses algorithms to analyze your existing data and create the best strategies to market content.
For example, if the analysis shows one type of content is more popular than another, you can pick the right solution for you.
AI helps you decide what to write about, which keywords to use, how often to publish, etc.
In other words, AI can help you create high-quality and high-ranking content.
From discovering keywords to planning and creating great content, to distributing and optimizing blog posts, to scheduling social sharing, there is a lot of work AI can do for your business and marketing.
Benefits of using AI in content marketing
So many businesses take their marketing campaigns to the next level by providing quality blog posts, vigorous social media messages, engaging videos, exciting webinars, etc.
Popular AI-based tools to power your content marketing: MarketMuse, BrightEdge, Vennli, Acrolinx, Concured, Lucy.
4. Sentiment Analysis To Gauge Customer’s Emotions
Sentiment analysis is an automated process for monitoring and analyzing people’s emotions and opinions in different types of text.
The text can be conversations taking place on blogs, social media, comments of products or services, etc.
Using sentiment analysis, businesses detect the opinions expressed by customers and measure feedback placed in millions of web pages, reviews, and forums.
Thanks to AI in sentiment analysis, businesses can analyze huge amounts of data, understand how customers feel and merge all types of social data to discover customer needs, intents and preferences.
Benefits of using AI for sentiment analysis
Example:
TripAdvisor applies sentiment analysis to make the most out of the huge amount of data it has. It allows the company to extract viable points regarding customer feedback.
Thus, TripAdvisor can understand what the target audience feels, detect emerging trends, find hidden opportunities and see what can be improved.
This contributes to the further improvement of the service by providing customers with what they need.
Popular sentiment analysis tools: MonkeyLearn, Clarabridge Speech Analytics, IBM Watson Tone Analyzer, Lexalytics, Rosette
5. Powerful Competitive Intelligence
Thanks to AI, it’s easier than ever before to conduct competitive intelligence, research, and analysis.
Competitive intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing information about your current and potential competitors, industry, and business environment.
Practically, you can track everything your competitors do – from products to people to promotions.
The goal is to find out what is working for other businesses in your industry so that you can make the most informed decisions.
By leveraging artificial intelligence in your competitive intelligence efforts, you can effortlessly spy, track, and understand what your competitors are doing and what makes them successful.
Benefits of AI-powered competitive research and analysis
Examples:
The leading companies use competitive intelligence as their business growth strategy and cleverly harvest the benefits of someone else’s successes or failures. Google carefully pays attention to the mistakes in Yahoo’s UI.
Uber exploited the public enthusiasm for Lyft. Apple redefined the mobile market — a category that Motorola pioneered.
Popular AI-based competitive intelligence tools: Crayon, Prisync, CI Radar, Digimind, Kompyte, Sprout Social
6. Sales Forecasting To Grow Your Business
Sales forecasting is the process of predicting and estimating future sales. It is a vital factor for defining long-term business growth.
Sales forecasts allow you to see potential problems while you still have time to avoid them.
For instance, if you spot your team is trending 28% below quota, you can discover what is the reason. Maybe your competitor is running a very attractive discounting campaign.
Accurate sales forecasts enable businesses to calculate the probability of customer purchase, predict short-term and long-term performance, and allocate resources accordingly.
The AI-based software analyzes CRM data, purchase history, and data about past deals. It looks at data elements such as emails, meetings, phone calls and then performs text mining to analyze how they relate to sales outcomes.
After it has analyzed how each data element relates to sales performance, the AI software evaluates the next move of a given customer, so it gives an accurate prediction.
Benefits for businesses of using AI for sales forecasting
Example:
An effective sales forecast software helped JusCollege manage the huge volume of contacts flowing through their sales pipeline.
The result is increased sales from $1 million to $20 million in only two years.
Popular sales forecasting tools: SalesForce Einstein AI, Clari, TwelveZeros, Aviso, Zoho CRM, Interloop
7. Optimize Your Price
The price is a key factor that makes customers buy from companies especially from retailers.
Deloitte studies show that price is critical. We may live in the age of value—but the price is still king.
Many factors influence your price: price history, brand reputation, competition, quality, season, operating costs, demand, etc.
Artificial Intelligence software can successfully take all of these factors into account when determining optimal prices.
It can help you make the best price decisions for every product, in every season, and via every channel.
Let’s define optimal prices.
These are prices that attract your customers and allow you to make the most profit.
AI software can scan a huge amount of data, go through endless pricing scenarios, and suggest the most relevant price.
Benefits for businesses of using AI for price optimization
Examples:
Let’s take for example Lyft and Uber. The world of ride-sharing is existing mainly thanks to Artificial Intelligence. The price of the fare and the route it will take are defined by AI.
Brands from fashion like Zara or Michael Kors don’t just use AI for pricing. They rely on it.
Amazon and Walmart have been using cognitive pricing optimization technologies including AI technology for years.
Popular AI-powered software for price optimization: Perfect Price, Intelligencenode, Wise Athena, Navetti PricePoint, prudsys
8. Smart Cybersecurity
Many credit card companies are relying on AI for helping financial institutions prevent billions of dollars in fraud annually.
But cybersecurity is not important only for financial companies. It’s critical for many industries, including retail, consumer products, automotive, utilities, and telecom.
As digital businesses grow, the risk of cyberattacks exponentially increases.
There are many types of threats a business can face: identity thefts, account takeovers, vindictive ransomware strains, etc.
AI software can deal with cybersecurity in many ways: vulnerability management, phishing detection, Network Security, behavioral analytics, prevention control, etc.
Benefits for businesses of using AI for cybersecurity
Example:
One of the most notable examples is Google.
Google always builds and maintains an extremely strong cybersecurity culture.
Google Gmail has used AI and machine learning techniques to filter and secure emails for years.
Millions of people use Google’s Gmail daily. AI catches unauthorized logins and monitors various aspects of behaviour throughout a user’s session.
Popular AI software for cybersecurity: Darktrace, Tessian, Falcom Platform, BluVector, Deepinstinct, Haltdos
9. Create Delightful In-store Experiences
Despite the growing demand for online shopping, physical stores still have the lion’s share of sales.
Artificial intelligence has the power to entirely transform the traditional in-store experience and take it to the next level with a personalization that delights customers.
Instant access to customer care at any time, fast checkout, product support, personalized recommendations, and helping customers make smarter decisions, are some of the ways AI can enhance the in-store customer experience.
The current and potential applications of AI in retail are very different, interesting, and promising.
The in-store AI can find when the customer had last visited the store and track the products bought in the past. Using this data, AI can suggest new suitable products and offer personalized rewards like discounts, loyalty points, etc.
AI-powered devices like voice-enabled cameras can interpret facial cues. Capturing customers’ emotions and reactions helps in delivering appropriate products or support.
Benefits for businesses of using AI for creating in-store experience
Examples:
Lowes has the LoweBot to help customers find their way around the store. LoweBots in the store ask customers simple questions to discover what they need. The robot provides directions to products and shares knowledge with customers.
Another example is Sephora. In a Sephora store, you can find makeup shade that suits you the best without ever putting anything on your face. Color IQ scans a customer’s face and provides personalized recommendations for foundation and makeup.
Popular AI-powered solutions for retail and in-store experience: Pepper Robot, LoweBot, Tally, Promobot, Brain Corp’s Robots,
10. Save Time And Reduce Costs
A Forbes analysis found AI could save the average Fortune 500 company $4.7 million per year via automation.
Artificial intelligence technology allows businesses to automate a variety of processes, free up employees’ time, and help improve productivity.
By automating repetitive tasks, AI can help you achieve greater output in less time at a lower cost.
AI can improve the speed of your business operations and decrease mundane tasks so that employees can focus on more important activities.
People are your most valuable asset. AI can save their time by automating some of their less-important and time-consuming duties.
Benefits of AI-powered cost reduction.
Example:
For example, Botkeeper utilizes human-assisted AI. It helps businesses manage routine accounting tasks such as bill paying, financial reporting, etc. It is automated bookkeeping support to businesses.
To date, the software has automated more than 1,700,000 hours of bookkeeping for its 1000 clients.
Another example is Netflix. In 2017, Netflix saved $1 billion by using machine learning.
Download the following infographic in PDF
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence is not only for global tech giants and leading companies. AI is for every future-oriented business that aims to grow and stay ahead of the competition.
How exactly you will use AI, depends on what your business is trying to achieve.
Artificial intelligence can change the way you run your business, allowing you to make better decisions more quickly.
AI landscape will redefine the terms on which companies will compete. For forward-thinking businesses, it will be a massive opportunity.
