If we had to dub the 2020s the age of artificial intelligence, it wouldn’t be too much of a hyperbolic exaggeration.
We’ve seen some heavy advances in AI in these years, with the cherry on the cake being the game-changing ChatGPT released in November 2022.
Thanks to all these advances and the various software releases etc., AI has made an indelible impact on businesses and the way they work.
The businesses that capitalize on the various perks offered by AI can outgrow and outrank their competitors.
On the other hand, the businesses that cling retrogressively to the old-fashioned means and measures will find themselves going obsolete.
Now, when we talk about how AI is transforming online businesses, there are different facets to this discussion.
Delving into them all won’t be very practical vis-à-vis brevity, so we’ll keep it limited to a couple of points.
1. Enabling Automation in Everyday Tasks
While the exact everyday tasks of a business can vary depending on the products/services it offers, there are some things that are done by pretty much every business.
For example, data entry is one such universal task that every business does. The same goes for things like inventory management, financial record creation, recruitment, customer support, and so on.
Normally, these types of tasks are performed by humans, due to which they can take up a lot of time and effort. But with AI, all of this stuff can be automated.
- There are different data entry tools and software that can be used to sort a certain set of data and organize it in an easily perusable form.
- There are different inventory management tools that keep track of the products in a business’s inventory. The inventory levels are updated according to the sales of the respective products. This is a big example of AI utilization in automation.
- Similarly, AI-based OCR tools can be used to extract text from images. This can help in data entry, record keeping, and safer document storage. Using tools like this is much more beneficial than doing the same thing manually.
- For businesses who want to set up a customer support model, AI chatbots can be highly useful. Using chatbots can lessen the burden on the live agents since they (the chatbots) can handle the initial phases of the customer’s queries and help them get solutions without having to bring an agent into the picture.
The stuff that we’ve mentioned above are mere examples. The number and types of tools that can be used in this regard are multifarious.
You can find and choose the ones that are germane and helpful to your business in particular.
2. AI Allows Effective Marketing
Proper marketing is one of the main steps that a business has to take in order to stay floating.
It is through marketing that a business showcases its wares to its customers in order to sell the former and raise revenue.
Marketing has evolved through the years, and nowadays, AI plays quite a major role in it. There are different ways in which AI is used for marketing purposes.
For example…
In content marketing, the process of researching, creating, and distributing the content is aided with AI. Tools like ChatGPT, Paraphraser, and Frase are used for this purpose.
In email marketing, customer journeys are tailored for specific users according to other usage patterns and their responses.
This is achieved via AI. Mailchimp is a good example of a tool that facilitates this.
Chatbots are also a type of digital marketing, and they are pretty much a product of artificial intelligence. They allow site visitors to learn more about the brand and its offerings.
3. AI Allows Better Communication
Proper communication is one of the necessary elements of smooth business running. Without good communication, collaboration between members of a company can be difficult.
AI can help facilitate better communication between members of a firm/company.
When we say “communication,” we refer to that which is carried out via written messages in the form of emails and messages.
For example, if you want to write an email to a co-worker or a senior, you can generate it with a tool like ChatGPT.
An email generated by an AI tool won’t have errors and imperfections in it, and it would also require you to make a lot less effort.
In the same way, if you don’t want to generate your messages and emails from scratch, you can take the help of AI to polish them.
For example, if you write an email but you see that it is riddled with errors that make it incoherent and nonsensical, you can use AI tools like paraphrasers and grammar checkers to make it better.
(We’ve mentioned some of these tools in the heading above, i.e., the one about digital marketing.)
4. AI Allows Businesses to Analyze and Learn from Their Performance
Without learning from the results of their efforts, businesses can stagnate. They can get stuck without making improvements in their approach and modus operandi, which can lead to a decline in their profitability.
Performance analysis can be efficiently done with the help of AI tools.
For example, if a particular online company wants to look at the performance of its website in the SERPs, it can use analytical tools like Ahrefs and Google Analytics.
These tools utilize AI to provide data from different time periods and for different types of variables.
An online business can see its organic traffic trends and rankings for different keywords on the SERPs, etc.
Analyzing the changes and fluctuations in these metrics can help online businesses learn how they can improve their working.
Conclusion
Nowadays, AI is playing a major in transforming online businesses. Various tasks associated with running an online business can be made a lot easier with the help of AI-driven tools and software.
In the post above, we have looked at a few ways that highlight the benefits of AI for an online business.
