Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been taking the world by storm in recent years, and now it is more readily available than ever. Put simply; it is the ability of computers to carry out tasks that are usually performed by people. Artificial intelligence applications are able to make decisions, communicate with users and much more. This technology has opened up many possibilities for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
AI can be used to enhance existing human capabilities and has the potential to transform the way a business operates for the better. There are many ways that artificial intelligence can improve businesses through increasing efficiency and driving revenue growth. Here are just ten ways that AI can help businesses:
1. Customer Support Chatbots
Chatbot software is able to imitate a human conversation and is commonly being used by businesses to assist with customer support. Many websites, mobile apps and phone systems use this type of artificial intelligence to communicate with customers. In today’s ‘always-on’ society, people expect customer service to be available quickly and at any time from anywhere.
Chatbot software is an easy way for businesses to provide this high level of support. Artificial intelligence can provide a personal experience between a brand and its customers. Not only do they offer immediate answers in real-time, but they can help to ease the burden on human customer service teams.
2. Personalised Product Recommendation
Every business wants to know about new ways to boost revenue, and artificial intelligence is a great tool for product recommendations. Software systems are available which use AI to suggest specific products based on data analysis methods. This includes a user’s purchase or viewing history, as well as behaviours of other similar users.
Artificial intelligence can then use this information to display personalised product recommendations on eCommerce websites, advertisements and email campaigns.
3. Customer Emotions Through Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis is an application of artificial intelligence which automates the process of monitoring and analysing people’s emotions and opinions within the text. This text includes social media posts, blogs, comments and reviews. Sentiment analysis is useful for businesses as it can be used to detect the overall opinions being expressed by their customers.
This type of artificial intelligence can analyse millions of pieces of text quickly and easily to provide the business with a comprehensive overview of the customer sentiment. This information can then be used to enhance customer experience, improve products and fine tune services.
4. Competitive Intelligence
Every business has a competitor set that it compares itself against. Artificial intelligence can make it easier to conduct effective competitive intelligence. It can be used to collect and analyse information from current and potential new competitors. AI can be used to track every move your competitors make, including promotions, products and people. This is powerful for finding out what works well for other companies within your industry.
5. Accurate Forecasting For Business Growth
The process of estimating and predicting future revenue is vital for considering your long term business growth. Creating these sales forecasts manually can be not only time-consuming but sometimes inaccurate. Artificial intelligence can be used to analyse purchase history, CRM data, existing information and data elements in order to create an accurate forecast for the future.
It will begin by looking into how each data element relates to the sales performance, in order to evaluate the next move of any customer.
6. Price Optimisation
Price is one of the key reasons why a customer chooses you over competitors, particularly within the retail industry. Your businesses pricing is critical to your overall success. Price is often influenced by many factors, including price history, competition, brand reputation, season, demand and operating costs. Artificial intelligence can be used to review all these factors and determine your optimal pricing.
Optimal pricing is the price that will attract customers in any given season or via any channel, in order for you to make the most profit. Because AI is able to scan large amount of data at once, it can run through unlimited pricing scenarios to find the most successful price.
7. Perfectly Targeted Content Marketing
Content marketing is an extremely powerful tool for engaging and attracting new customers through valuable content. This form of marketing comes in so many forms including posts, videos, infographics, social media, email marketing and much more.
Artificial intelligence can be used with content marketing strategies in order to analyse your businesses existing data and create relevant plans for marketing content. It will be able to determine which types of content work best for your customer base, as well as which keywords to use and how often to post.
8. Reduced Employee Expenses
One of the biggest outgoings for any business is their staff. By the time you have added up the cost of wages, benefits packages, learning and development, the chances are you will have spent a huge amount of money. These expenses ultimately reduce your profit margin at the end of the year.
Artificial intelligence can be used to reduce the number of staff you need to run your business, and in turn increase your profits. AI applications can complete many tasks, some of which will be expensive in manpower and hours required.
9. Clever Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is more important than ever, with many credit card companies adopting AI for fraud prevention. Every business that handles payments and data should be up to speed with cybersecurity in order to protect themselves and their customers. Artificial intelligence can help with managing and identifying vulnerable areas within your business, phishing detection, behavioural analytics and much more.
10. Save Time And Improve Productivity
Artificial intelligence allows you to automate many processes within your business. This can save a huge amount of time and improve productivity among team members. Repetitive tasks can be easily automated and often result in greater output at a lower cost and in less time.
Overall, this can improve the speed of your operations and allow employees to focus on more important tasks.
For more information on artificial intelligence and how it can help your business as well as the skills, you need to implement AI, watch our FREE
webinar. We also offer an in-depth look into artificial intelligence with our
BSC Essentials in Artificial Intelligence course, which covers the terminology, principles and practices of Artificial Intelligence which is a critical skill that many employers are looking for.
