HOW ADOPTING AI CAN SET YOUR SMALL BUSINESS APART

By now it is clear that Artificial Intelligence , AI, is here to stay and why not? It has made life for everyone considerably easier, yes even you. Ever wonder how Netflix always recommends the movies that are right up your alley, or how your favorite e-commerce brands know exactly what kinds of products and services to bring to your attention? Well, that is all thanks to AI. Most popularly adopted is AI’s Chatgpt, I bet you have used it at least once, to try to get a better understanding of a task. Well that is just one small facet of AI’s problem solving abilities.

In recent times, the buzz around AI seems to be more pronounced, that is because it is the “secret” of the continued success of so many businesses. There seems to be a popular misconception that integrating AI into your non tech business is difficult because it requires a ton of technical know how, or a stand by team of engineers for its implementation. Well, I am here to demystify that. As a small business owner, adopting AI in your business operations not only gives you a competitive edge, but it happens to be easier than you probably imagined. Stick with me and I’ll tell you how to make this happen, but first let us get into the fundamentals of AI.

THE CONCEPT OF AI 

Imagine you have a robot friend that can learn and solve problems. AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is like a super smart brain built into computers so they can think, learn, and do things on their own. AI started as an idea a long time ago. People wanted to see if machines could act like humans. Over the years, computers got faster and smarter, allowing them to do more things, like recognizing faces or talking to us (think of Siri or Alexa!).

HOW AI IS ABLE TO DO THIS 

AI needs data, that is lots of information to learn and work. Think of data like the “experience” AI uses to make decisions. For example, if you want AI to recognize pictures of cats, you have to show it thousands of cat pictures. This is basically called machine learning, it begins to learn from examples instead of needing to be told everything. The more data it has, the better it can learn. It’s also like how as a human, having certain experiences shapes you, it helps you recognize patterns that might lead you to experience them again and how to act upon them to stop the experience from recurring.

HOW AI PROCESSES THIS DATA 

AI processes this data with something called algorithms. These are the instructions or rules that tell the AI how to process the data. Imagine an algorithm as a recipe, It explains step by step how to combine the ingredients (data) to get the final product (a decision or action). Some algorithms help AI learn from data (this is what machine learning does), while others might help it make decisions based on certain conditions.

Now to bring it all together, For businesses, this means AI can help with tasks like predicting sales, finding patterns, or even spotting mistakes faster than humans. It makes companies more efficient because computers can handle huge amounts of data quickly, helping people make better decisions or saving time on tasks!

HOW AI CAN BE USEFUL TO YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

1.Personalized Recommendations: This is a business game changer, it is a great strategy for increasing sales, thereby enhancing customer experience and a satisfied customer will become a loyal one. AI looks at what a customer has bought or viewed before and predicts what they might like next. It can analyze customer data, such as browsing habits, purchase history, or even the time spent looking at certain items, to offer personalized suggestions. Remember the Netflix example I used earlier? Exactly! This makes your customer feel understood and valued.

2.Social Media Management : It has become a thing for businesses to hire multiple social media handlers because quite simply they don’t understand how social media marketing works, or it is just another aspect of the business that can’t be handled simultaneously with other business operations, and this is perfectly acceptable. Now AI has made social media management easier and accurate. AI can help your business plan, create, and post content on social media. It can also track engagement, suggest the best times to post, and analyze trends, allowing businesses to maintain a strong online presence with less effort. It is a very efficient way to handling your business social accounts and reducing wasted content creating and marketing efforts. Personally I recommend the Buffer application for this, it includes a free plan and also a subscription plan.

3.Email Marketing: Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing mediums as it ensures that you remain top of mind for your customers. What does adopting AI in your email marketing do? AI can personalize emails for each customer, such as including their name, recommending products based on their preferences, or tailoring the content to their interests.AI can also automatically send a series of emails based on customer actions, like signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or abandoning their cart. This helps keep communication consistent without needing manual input. This saves so much time and mental effort. Platforms like Mailchimp or HubSpot use AI to help you with email marketing.

4.Customer Service Chatbots: This is similar to having your own personal assistant that could help you talk to people online. AI chatbots can be used to handle common customer queries, like order tracking, product questions, etc. Overall this makes the entire customer experience satisfying and makes them trust you better. Handling tasks like this on your own can be nerve wracking, and time consuming, but through natural language processing, AI is propped to talk to your customers in a humane way and even detect their moods like when they are angry or irrational, going forward to speak to them in a calmly manner. The Zendeskapplication can help you set up an AI chatbot on your website.

5.Creating Ads: Ever felt frustrated because the paid ads for your business are not converting as they should? Yeah that is quite a bummer. The good news is that AI can also bridge that gap. AI can help you design and target ads to the right audience, making sure you’re reaching the right people. This makes your advertising efforts more effective and reduces wasted ad spending. The Facebook Ads Manager is a tool that can help you achieve this.

Conclusion

AI has leveled the playing field for businesses of all kinds. By introducing your business to AI, you can ultimately cut back on your workload, and have your business become more efficient , profitable and seamless. Overall it makes you a happier business owner.