This is a guest post by Julie Davis of Crux Intelligence. All views/opinions expressed herein are that of the author. This Website may or may not agree with the same.
Small businesses & startups need every edge they can get. You are new to the market or you might be competing with more established businesses. One way small businesses can level the playing field is through the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
You can find a lot of people talking about different types of AI that might be useful for business. For a small business or startup, an AI-powered BI tool can be one of the best ways to invest in the technology. However, with so much talk of the different AI tools available, you know what is out there, but you might not know as much about implementing AI at your business.
For those interested in using AI to reach business goals, this post will cover some of what you need to know about bringing AI to your business.
A Quick Overview Of AI For Business
A simple explanation of AI is that it is a branch of computer science that works to make intelligent machines. Early forms of AI were programmed with explicit rules that governed the actions of the machine. With modern technologies like machine learning, AI systems mimic human intelligence more closely and learn from experience.
When it is applied to business, AI is generally aimed toward data analytics. If you have enough data, different AI-powered platforms can be used to analyze that data to look for platforms and develop insights.
As an example, if you have enough marketing data, the AI-powered analytics platform might find a pattern that a specific group of customers responded well to a particular ad set. It might also find that a different group didn’t respond well. This information could then be used to guide your marketing decisions for those two groups in the future.
The Benefits Of AI For Business
With enough data, AI can be used to give your business a competitive advantage. It can provide insights that can provide clarity into the operations of your business and help you make decisions. With predictive analytics, you can spot trends early & plan for the future. Some AI platforms can even perform prescriptive analytics to help you understand the outcomes of decisions.
Artificial intelligence can also be used to develop a better customer experience. By analyzing customer data, you can identify the products they want, the types of ads that inspire action, the expected lifetime spend of different customer groups and more. You can even use it to deliver personalized experiences for customers.
Introducing AI To Your Business
There is more to getting started with AI than having data & paying for a platform that can help you work with that data. To start, you need to assess your goals & figure out what you are trying to achieve with AI. This will guide your decisions when selecting AI analytics tools.
Once you have the platform & the supporting resources, you need to get people at your business on board with using the AI tools. As a start, you will need to make sure employees know how to use the AI tools you make available to them. You will also need to brief them on the ways you expect them to use the tools & the ways you expect AI to improve their output.
At many businesses, it might be necessary to promote the AI tools & encourage use. Some people might not be as enthusiastic about using AI as you are. Experienced employees might be set in their ways or they might not fully understand the benefits of AI. This is where leadership needs to step up to push the use of the AI tools & get people invested in using them.
AI can be a real difference-maker for small businesses & startups. It can help you make better decisions & serve customers better. At this point, you shouldn’t be asking if you need AI – you should be thinking about finding the right AI tools & planning for the steps you will need to take to implement AI at your company.
Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay
