Finding AI solutions that make sense for you
The pressure is on: limited resources, tight deadlines, and the constant push to stay ahead. AI tools like Upfirst, ChatGPT, or Canva can really make an impact by streamlining processes and automating, well, practically everything from managing incoming calls to resume screening.
Want to automatically send highly personalized emails to your dental patients but pressed for time? Copy AI can help. Not sure how to create a last-minute and high quality video that spotlights your newest products? Lumen 5 is worth a try. But choosing the right AI tools isn’t as simple as you might think. You need something that’s tailored to your specific needs, workflows, and budget. Here’s a high-level list of the best AI tools for small businesses to get you started.
Benefits of AI tools for small businesses
Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way to run things.
AI-powered solutions can help you manage tedious or time-consuming tasks so you can focus on bringing in new business or simply do what you do best.
- Give Customers What They Want (When They Ask for It): Wish you were available day and night to answer customer questions? AI-powered chatbots can handle routine inquiries, so your team can focus on high-priority items on their list. Plus, chatbots are great at providing instant responses, which trickles down to happier, valued customers.
- Take Control of Lead Generation: Struggling to attract new customers? AI-powered marketing tools can help you identify and target potential leads based on proven data, so you don’t have to spend hours researching. From personalized email campaigns to social media advertising, AI can help you reach the right people at the right time.
- Make the Most Out of Your Time: Tired of repetitive tasks draining your time? AI can automate many routine tasks, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic work. Whether it’s data entry, scheduling, or even content creation, AI can help you streamline your operations.
- Gain a Better Workflow for Less: Worried about the cost of integrating AI into your daily workflow? Big picture, AI tools can actually save you money, putting a cap on labor costs and lightening everyone’s load across the board.
- Be Strategic and Stand Out: Want to feel like you’re making strategic decisions? From understanding customer behavior to predicting market trends, AI can make it easy for you to leverage valuable insights your competitors just don’t have.
Best AI tools for a small business
Upfirst
Upfirst is an AI-powered answering service that acts as your 24/7 virtual receptionist. It goes beyond basic call routing – Upfirst is trained on your specific business needs, capturing customer information accurately and relaying messages just like a well-trained employee would. This means no more missed opportunities or frustrating experiences for your callers.
Imagine a potential client calling after hours. Instead of reaching a generic voicemail, they’re greeted by a friendly AI voice that understands your products or services. Upfirst can answer questions, schedule appointments, or take detailed messages, ensuring no lead slips through the cracks.
Features:
- Customizable Scripts: Tailor responses to match your brand’s voice and tone.
- Intelligent Call Routing: Direct calls to the right person or department based on customer needs.
- CRM Integration: Automatically log call details and customer information.
- 24/7 Availability: Never miss a call, even outside of business hours.
- Affordable Pricing: A cost-effective alternative to traditional call centers.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is a versatile language model that can be valuable for small businesses in a number of ways, from customer service to content creation and even code. Stuck on a blog post? ChatGPT can help you brainstorm ideas, write outlines, or even flesh out a few paragraphs to help get you started. Or, if you’re overwhelmed with customer support emails, ChatGPT can provide instant, well researched responses to common questions.
Features:
- Natural language understanding: ChatGPT can understand and respond to a wide range of prompts and questions.
- Text generation: Generate creative text formats, such as poems, code, scripts, musical pieces, emails, letters, etc.
- Translation: Trying to cast a wider net? ChatGPT can translate text from one language to another.
- Summarization: It can summarize long pieces of text, so you can pick up the main points.
- Answering questions: Get informative answers to your questions backed up with cited sources.
Jasper
Whether you’re struggling with writer’s block, need to generate content for multiple platforms, or level up the quality of your writing, Jasper can be the best AI tool for your small business. Prompting Jasper to help you write engaging social posts or give you engaging blog ideas tailored for your target market is invaluable, especially for busy business owners with a tight budget.
Features:
- Content Generation: Jasper can generate every type of content under the sun, including blog posts, social media posts, product descriptions, and email campaigns.
- Long-Form Content: Want to create longer pieces of content, such as articles or whitepapers? Let Jasper handle the hard work.
- Brainstorming: Jasper can help you ideate topics, keywords, and headlines based on the data that you feed through.
- Tone of Voice: Customize the tone of voice of your generated content to match your brand.
- Language Styles: Jasper can even write in different styles depending on your needs, such as persuasive, informative, or conversational.
DALL-E
Need marketing and design help but can’t afford to hire new talent? DALL-E is a powerful AI tool that can generate images from text descriptions. This means you can simply describe the image you want, and DALL-E will create it for you. In the middle of rebranding and need unique logo mock-ups? Just describe your brand’s personality and aesthetic to DALL-E, and the tool will generate a series of logo concepts to present to other stakeholders.
Features:
- Image Generation: DALL-E can generate images from text descriptions.
- Style Transfer: It can apply the style of an existing image to a new image.
- Image Editing: DALL-E can modify existing images, such as adding or removing elements.
- High-Quality Output: DALL-E produces high-resolution images.
- Versatility: It can generate a wide menu of images, from realistic to abstract.
Copy AI
Copy AI is an AI-powered writing tool designed to help businesses create high-quality marketing copy quickly and easily. Whether you’re struggling with phrasing or need to generate content for multiple platforms, Copy AI brings SEO-rich content right to your fingertips. Provide a few key details, and get multiple options for persuasive ad copy or engaging email headlines, which is a huge time saver for small businesses.
Features:
- Content Generation: Copy AI can generate various types of marketing copy, including website copy, social media content, email subject lines, and ad copy.
- Templates: Copy AI offers pre-built templates for different types of content, making it easy to get started.
- Customization: You can customize the generated content by providing more specific details or adjusting the tone of voice.
- Language Styles: Copy AI can write in different styles, such as persuasive, informative, or creative.
- Integration: Copy AI can be integrated into various content management systems and marketing platforms.
Grammarly
When you’re busy running a business, you don’t always have time for semantics. Grammarly is like having a personal editor at your fingertips, always ready to catch errors and suggest improvements. For small businesses wanting to draft emails, write blog posts, or create marketing materials, Grammarly can filter out mistakes like typos, grammatical errors, and awkward phrasing, so it’s one less detail on your to-do list.
Features:
- Expert Error Correction: Pinpoint and correct a wide range of grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors that could be keeping your business back from sounding trustworthy.
- Clarity and Conciseness: It can suggest ways to improve the clarity and conciseness of your writing so your customers get accurate and digestible information the first time.
- Style Suggestions: Get suggestions for improving your writing style, such as using a more active voice or avoiding jargon.
- Plagiarism Detection: It can check your writing for plagiarism and suggest alternative wording if necessary.
- Integration: Easily integrate Grammarly into your most used writing platforms and applications (like Google Docs), making error-free content accessible wherever you create content.
Upmetrics
Trying to look ahead for more growth opportunities? Upmetrics is a powerful AI-powered financial forecasting tool designed to help small businesses be more strategic and not reactionary. By analyzing historical data and current trends, Upmetrics serves up predictions about future revenue, potential expenses, and even cash flow shortages. Want to forecast sales for the upcoming quarter? Use Upfirst to put together a detailed sales report or estimate the impact of a new marketing campaign, bringing blindspots for your small business into full view.
Features:
- Financial Forecasting: Upmetrics can provide accurate forecasts for revenue, expenses, and cash flow.
- Data Analysis: It can analyze historical data and identify trends and patterns.
- Scenario Planning: You can create different scenarios to test the impact of various decisions on your business’s financial performance.
- KPI Tracking: Upmetrics can track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your business’s progress.
- Integration: It can integrate with popular accounting software and other business tools.
Sniper AI
Are you a small business overwhelmed by the hiring process? Sniper AI is your HR assistant on standby. This AI-powered recruitment tool can automate typical tedious tasks, freeing up your time to focus on what matters most: finding the perfect candidate for the role. Don’t get stuck sifting through resumes, and put your energy towards vetting candidates. Sniper AI can pre-screen resumes based on your specific criteria, shortlist qualified candidates, and even schedule interviews for you.
Features:
- Resume Screening: Automatically screen resumes based on keywords, skills, and experience.
- Candidate Shortlisting: Identify the most qualified candidates based on your criteria.
- Interview Scheduling: Schedule interviews with candidates and send automated reminders.
- Reporting and Analytics: Track your hiring progress and get insights into candidate selection.
- Integration: Integrates with popular job boards and applicant tracking systems (ATS).
Notion AI
Notion is already a popular productivity tool, but with Notion AI, it gets even better. Whether you’re working solo or collaborating with a team, this AI assistant can unlock new levels of productivity and organization. Instead of staring at a blank page, Notion AI can suggest relevant topics, generate outlines, and even help you prioritize tasks. It also helps you stay on top of deadlines by suggesting reminders and due dates so there are no more missed vendor invoices or double-booking technicians.
Features:
- Smart Suggestions: Provides context-aware suggestions for topics, outlines, and tasks.
- Auto-Summarization: Summarizes lengthy documents and articles in an instant to save you time.
- Meeting Notes & Action Items: Automatically captures meeting notes and suggests action items.
- Collaboration Tools: Bring your teams together with features like shared workspaces and real-time editing.
- Integration: Integrates with popular tools like Google Drive, Slack, and Calendar.
Otter.ai
Ever feel like you miss important details during a call? Otter.ai is an AI-powered service that can transcribe your calls and meetings in real time, making it easier than ever to stay on top of everything. Say goodbye to hard-to-read notes scribbled in a rush. Otter.ai captures every word spoken during a call, creating a searchable transcript that you can easily reference later. Have a busy law firm but need help keeping up with the basics? This small business AI tool even identifies different speakers and timestamps conversations, making it perfect for partner meetings, client calls, and interviews.
Features:
- Real-Time Transcription: Provides accurate transcriptions of your meetings, calls, and interviews.
- Speaker Identification: Differentiates between speakers, making it easier to follow the conversation.
- Search & Highlight: Search for keywords and highlight important points in your transcript.
- Voice Notes: Add voice notes to your transcripts for additional context or clarification.
- Collaboration: Share and collaborate with others on your transcripts in real time.
Canva
Canva is already a popular design tool for small businesses, but did you know it also offers AI-powered image generation tools? With a simple prompt, you can create high-quality images for your website, social media, or marketing materials. Whether you need a product image, a stunning background, or a unique infographic, Canva’s AI can help you bring your vision to life.
Features:
- AI Image Generation: Create high-quality images based on your text descriptions.
- Background Removal: Easily remove backgrounds from images in seconds.
- Smart Mockups: Place your designs on mockups for a professional, buttoned-up look.
- Style Transfer: Inspired by a certain aesthetic? Apply the style of a famous artist to your images.
- Photo Effects: Quickly optimize your photos with one-click filters and effects.
Lumen5
Creating engaging video content can be time-consuming and requires specialized skills. Lumen5 takes the complexity out of video creation by offering a user-friendly platform with AI-powered features. Simply type in text, choose a template, and Lumen5 will automatically generate a short and engaging video that communicates and motivates viewers online. Don’t have the budget to hire a professional videographer? Not a problem. Create professional-looking videos that are optimized for each social media channel or sized for quick playback on your website (good for Google rankings) without any video editing experience.
Features:
- AI-Powered Video Creation: Creates short, engaging videos from text or articles.
- Text Overlay & Design: Automatically adds text overlays and design elements to your video.
- Stock Media Library: Access to a library of stock images and videos to complement your content.
- Customizable Templates: Choose from a variety of customizable templates to match your brand.
- Voiceover Options: Add a voiceover to your video using Lumen5’s built-in text-to-speech feature or upload your own audio.
- Social Media Sharing: Easily share your videos directly to social media platforms.
Which AI Tools are Right for My Business?
Ready to experience AI tools tailored for your real estate team, veterinary office, or law firm firsthand? Get a sizable boost in efficiency, cap off costs, improve customer service, and get data-driven insights that have your best interest at heart. But with so many options out there, how do you choose the right ones for your business?
The best way is trial and error. Experiment with different tools and see which ones work best for your specific needs and goals. Don’t be afraid to start small and switch things up as your business grows.
When choosing the best AI tools for small businesses like you, keep these things in mind:
- Your business goals: What do you want to achieve with AI? Are you looking to improve efficiency, increase sales, or enhance customer service?
- Your budget: How much are you willing to spend on AI tools? There are many free options available, as well as paid tools that offer advanced features.
- Your team’s skills: Do you have the technical expertise to implement and use AI tools? If not, consider hiring a consultant or outsourcing these tasks.
Whether you need help creating engaging content on social or AI-powered call answering support, small businesses need to think outside of the box to stay ahead of the curve. Discover how AI-powered call handling, virtual receptionists, and call routing can help set your small business up for success and try Upfirst.