The Benefits Of AI For Small And Medium-Sized Businesses

Nowadays, we hear more and more about artificial intelligence, mainly because it is integrated into so many aspects of our lives. Just think of the smart devices, smart appliances, and apps we use: AI enhances these tools, in such a way as to make them more useful and personalized.

AI technologies like machine learning solutions are also quite an important element in the world of small and medium-sized businesses, and the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated its adoption. SMEs have had to move many of their operations online, so they have resorted to new technologies to give the decentralized workforce all the tools necessary to maintain productivity. Through new technologies, small and medium-sized enterprises are automating operations to save time and money.

Artificial intelligence not only helps automate and simplify processes, it also enables you to analyze data more meaningfully, enabling you to make more informed and ultimately better business decisions.

In this article, we’ll explore the various aspects of AI in more depth and see what benefits your business can derive from it.

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What Is Artificial Intelligence?

In short, artificial intelligence is the ability of a non-human entity to carry out intelligent operations that would generally require the use of human intelligence. The term “artificial intelligence” was coined in the 1950s by John McCarthy, and technology has come a long way since then.

The evolution of the digital world that we have witnessed in recent years has given a strong boost to artificial intelligence, which today is also used for self-driving cars, automatic translation, facial recognition, robotics, and even medicine. Did you know that aircraft autopilot and your phone’s voice assistant use AI?

The Benefits Of Artificial Intelligence For SMEs

How does artificial intelligence apply to your small or medium-sized business?

One thing, it allows you to automate several manual operations so that teams can devote their time to more important tasks. Secondly, it allows you to get to know your customers better and offer them more personalized and targeted products, services, and experiences. Ultimately, AI has the power to improve marketing and sales, and therefore productivity in general.

Let’s explore in detail the 5 benefits that artificial intelligence offers to small and medium-sized businesses.

Improve productivity by automating operations. Automating operations, especially manual and repetitive ones, allows you to minimize the risk of human error. Furthermore, by being able to focus on more satisfying activities, employees are more motivated and, consequently, are more productive.
Increase in earnings thanks to an enhanced workforce. By having relevant and meaningful analytics available, employees can work more effectively and better understand customer wishes and expectations, which leads to increased revenue for the company.
Enhancement of customer service. With the arrival of the pandemic, customers have begun to interact more and more with brands via social platforms. Customer service has therefore taken on even greater importance. Artificial intelligence for customer support allows you to create chatbots that answer the most common questions of users, analyze the problems encountered most often, automatically prioritize tickets, and much more.
Improvement of upselling and cross-selling opportunities. If you get a better understanding of the customer and all his interactions with a company, you will have more tools to propose and sell other products and services of interest.
Strengthening of logistics and supply chain. Artificial intelligence revolutionizes processes: by automating marketing, intelligently classifying leads, and having fairly accurate estimates and forecasts available, companies can optimize their logistics and supply chain.

Artificial intelligence finds application in many business sectors, from banking to medical, up to the financial one. Small and medium-sized businesses can use it to enhance e-commerce, improve customer service and simplify logistics.