Despite the gradual integration of artificial intelligence into almost every facet of society, in the business world, algorithms and automation have traditionally been fancy expensive tools used mainly by the biggest enterprises.
Today, however, the technology is more accessible and affordable than ever before. AI is available in many guises, across various platforms, and it is even baked into most business products without us taking notice.
When we talk about AI, the most common place for the mind (or the media) to go is job displacement. New tools and systems that will do your work, better and faster, and that will ultimately make you redundant. But what is more likely to happen, and quite apparent in the current job markets around the world, is that AI will enhance our careers, and make workers more efficient – so much so that they can take on other, more interesting workloads.
Here, in the context of a small business, what that means is that manual tasks, repetitive jobs, and the less interesting bits of work, can be automated. A chance to make up ground on the bigger guys and find gains in quality, speed, and efficiency across the operation. This is both a help for smaller businesses in their respective markets and also a surefire way to boost morale – making jobs easier, as such, will generally make workers happier.
While it can’t be guaranteed that we won't lose some jobs to automation, plenty more will likely be created through AI advancements. Here is where smaller firms can take advantage…
Small businesses and the benefits of AI
A poll by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) from 2023 stated that small businesses made up around 44% of all US economic activity and that understanding how they used technology was paramount to strengthening the national economy. In the poll, 83% of American small business owners told BPC that AI had helped to improve systems, increase efficiency, and allow staff to focus time on more valuable tasks.
Digging deeper into the tools being used, the same report from the year before (2022) had a broader focus on technology and included feedback on various types of business software – described as any application that runs on a digital device like a computer, tablet, or smartphone. The 2023 report, however, simply focused on AI and suggested that in just a year, AI had completely revolutionized the digital tool market. What’s more, most companies responding suggested they had integrated AI features into their existing platforms or were producing AI-based products themselves.
The odds have always been stacked against smaller businesses, as large enterprises and corporations have deep pockets, greater resources, and bigger influence over markets and new technologies. But, as the BPC report suggests, AI has become so accessible, and affordable, that it is no longer a tool for the elites – everyone can access and use AI in some form or another.
We now have generative AI tools pre-installed into hardware that fundamentally change how we work. We have various forms of AI tools and software that take the pain out of most jobs but also enhance processes; if you think of analytics, recruitment, and procurement, all of these business processes have been transformed with AI over the last few years.
Whether businesses use in-house tools or third-party providers, each one is a great example of where you can find data-driven actionable insights. It is here that AI can arguably help a small operation make the best strategic decisions.
This includes predictive analytics where AI can make predictions for market trends and customer behavior so the business can anticipate potential changes or future opportunities. Retailers, for example, use predictive analytics to optimize stock levels and supply chain efficiencies which ultimately improves the accuracy of their inventory management.
Recruitment software can read and process applications, rapidly, matching your job description to suitable candidates – much faster than a team of people could. This, perhaps, is the greatest argument for small businesses looking for what AI can do for them: it helps you go beyond your limitations.
Can AI compensate for size limitations?
Personnel is the biggest limitation for small businesses – both the number of people they have and the skill sets they bring. Here AI is almost like a fresh set of highly skilled employees, able to automate tasks or analyze data at a speed and efficiency that is impossible for humans.
Error reduction is perhaps the key for small businesses; with AI systems and their ability to learn and adapt, businesses can significantly reduce the likelihood of human error. The precision available is highly valuable in areas like financial accounting or data management.
AI is also infused in most modern cyber security suites; similar to predictive analytics, AI-based cyber security algorithms offer up potential risks and irregularities across the IT stack or network, enabling fast and effective threat detection or remediation of cyber attacks. As any company that has suffered a data breach will know, AI can be a huge money saver in the long run.
Many firms already use AI to automate marketing and social media communications with services like Buffer or SocialFlow. We are also seeing more examples of marketing content that has been created with generative AI. This has been game-changing over the last two years as it has been widely used to create imagery, messaging, and even whole articles for business promotion.
Even the humble chatbot is having a second wind thanks to the powers of generative AI. Customer-facing bots laced with generative AI have taken the weight off sellers and customer service agents by handling the initial parts of the conversations. These can be regular frustration points, but canned responses on website chatbots have been solving this issue, fairly swiftly, for years. And with generative AI it will largely replace that negative customer experience with precise information tailored to the needs of almost any business (or customer).
We are merely at the beginning of this type of digital transformation and it could well be how AI is used by innovative small businesses that drive it forward.
