SMBs are Driving Growth in AI Adoption

It’s becoming increasingly clear that for small businesses to compete on a bigger stage, they’ll need to be able to measure and report their ESG (environmental, social and governance) risks, opportunities and impact. Doing so can lead to new business opportunities, given that the proportion of major organizations that require small-business owners to disclose ESG metrics is expected to reach 92% this year. But ESG measurement solutions can often be expensive and out of reach for many small businesses. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. In Chicago, CRF is working with Allies for Community Business (A4CB), which provides the capital, coaching and connections entrepreneurs need to grow stable businesses, which in turn create jobs and wealth in their communities. The partnership is bringing better insights to the small-business owners they work with.

• Sectors such as construction, dining, and personal services are thriving, with construction seeing a 10% rise in activity and a 14% increase in wages.
• AI accounting tools can assist those unable to hire a dedicated or full-time bookkeeper.
• An AI tool or software-as-a-service (SaaS) business lets you create a branded, scalable product used across industries.
• Standing tall and confident, this small business owner expertly operates his coffee roastery shop, …

If you have customers or employees who speak different languages, you’ll want to make sure the chatbot can understand and respond in those languages. What sets LivePerson apart is its focus on self-learning and Natural Language Understanding (NLU). It also offers features such as engagement insights, which help businesses understand how to best engage with their customers. With its Conversational Cloud, businesses can create bots and message flows without ever having to code.

Here are eight budget-friendly AI tools that can elevate your marketing without breaking the bank. AI-powered chatbots have become essential for businesses aiming to improve customer support and streamline service. Starting an AI chatbot service lets you design, deploy, and manage chatbots that serve different industries, from retail to finance to hospitality.

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Kennedy also noted that small businesses using AI can significantly reduce the time needed for marketing efforts. He emphasized that time is the most valuable asset for small businesses, and AI can be a crucial tool in managing it appropriately. Chamber of Commerce, 40 percent of small businesses are now using generative AI tools and are experiencing growth as a result. Small businesses are also turning to generative AI to create and maintain dynamic dashboards that provide real-time insights into business performance metrics. These dashboards can be tailored to the specific needs of different team members, ensuring that relevant data is always accessible. As integration requirements increase, customized dashboards can help IT leaders keep track of what products have been purchased, which ones may be duplicative in scope and when licenses are up for renewal.

AI can also help small businesses with inventory management and sales forecasting behind the scenes. By observing historical data and identifying patterns, small businesses can use AI to predict which items are most and least likely to sell during Small Business Saturday. This ensures proper budgeting and stocking enough inventory to prevent selling out and missing potential revenue.

By integrating AI with human teams (Human AI Teaming or HAIT) into these areas, startups and small businesses can improve efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive growth, leading to AI-powered success. Once a small business has an automated customer service plan in place, IT leaders can invest in further training chatbots in order to build a more intelligent contact center. This training enables chatbots to become more proficient at difficult tasks such as delivering project updates, investigating credit card discrepancies or retrieving order tracking numbers.

As a small business built upon a reputation for fare that’s both on trend and fresh, Azahar needs to stay sharp to be able to compete in a growing market. Using artificial intelligence (AI) could help, by giving the café a way to use its own data to make smarter, more efficient business decisions. For example, by analyzing how many sandwiches are sold per day, it could eliminate waste by buying only as much as bread as is needed that day.

We’re not sure we trust Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg when we use their cloud-based AI offerings or that legislation passed by politicians that barely know how to plugin their TV sets is going to truly offer us protection. President Daly noted that one of the biggest open questions about GenAI concerns its effect on productivity, and she asked the leaders about their experiences in this area. The business leaders cited a number of examples where AI tools had already made a positive contribution to productivity, including significantly reducing the time it took to complete routine operations like document processing. When it comes to learning about AI, small businesses are turning to some familiar resources. Most small business owners are using Google (82%), other business owners (72%), and AI experts (71%) to learn more about AI. For small business owners managing remote teams or freelancers, collaboration can be a challenge.

Several roundtable participants reported that they had created new positions focused on integrating AI into their existing automated processes. Enhance your customer support and customer experience with AI assistant chatbots. These smart bots can free up your time to focus on more complex customer interactions. Look for AI-powered chatbot for small business chatbot platforms that allow you to build customized chatbots without requiring coding skills. Chamber of Commerce reports that 84% of small businesses using AI are optimistic that it will help their future growth, and 82% of respondents already using AI agree that it has helped increase the efficiency of business operations.

There are more than 30 million small businesses in the U.S. and I’m sure there are more than a few intrepid entrepreneurs that are leaning into AI apps and tools and platforms to help them run their businesses. They’re probably solopreneurs or run very small companies, where there’s low risk if something doesn’t work or “hallucinates” (which is another word for AI not working.) They’re geeks and gamists and enjoy monkeying around with technology. In recent years, artificial intelligence has had a tremendous impact on small businesses. More than half (54%) have cited AI as a key reason behind their growth, and nearly three-quarters believe that internal use of AI tools could give them an edge against competitors. Communities and businesses play a crucial role in shaping the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. To inform our decision-making, the San Francisco Fed hosts discussions with the people we serve so we can hear their stories and perspectives on how economic data translates into real impacts in the Twelfth District.

Understand the AI-enabled opportunities for the business

These challenges make it difficult for small businesses to create better customer experiences and maintain strong relationships. Designed for business owners, CO— is a site that connects like minds and delivers actionable insights for next-level growth. In an interview with PYMNTS, Paul Gubbay, chief product officer for Squarespace, said his company’s AI-driven design tools enhance business management solutions, making it easier for small companies to scale a business online. From a lender’s point of view, the smaller the business, the more difficult it is to know if the business is actually profitable and what its prospects might be. Many small business owners do not have a great sense of their cash flow, the sales they might make, when customers will pay, or what cash needs they could have based on the season or a new contract.

In fact, 63% of retail organizations now use AI to improve customer service, according to Capgemini. For small businesses, adopting AI could revolutionize how they engage with and retain customers. Even when businesses can extract and collect data, they often lack the tools to analyze it effectively, resulting in missed opportunities for improvement.

Among US small businesses that have adopted AI, the most common uses are for marketing, the development of customer insights, and communicating with customers/prospective customers. Additionally, fragmented customer data spread across multiple platforms prevents businesses from gaining a complete view of their customers. Ahead of Small Business Saturday, you’ll want to get your audience’s attention by standing out among other businesses’ promotions and limited-time deals. AI can help by creating personalized offers catered to your audience’s interests and past purchases, making them more likely to choose your business during the holiday rush. Entrepreneurs and industry leaders share their best advice on how to take your company to the next level.

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“Large businesses are using AI in similar ways,” he added, “but I think the smaller businesses are getting larger proportional benefits because they can [use AI to] manage functions that they may otherwise have to outsource or forgo.” More than 100 AWS trainings on AI/ML are available to everyone, with all levels of experience. Follow the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth’s journey ChatGPT App to advance equitable and sustainable economic growth and financial inclusion around the world by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram. Chamber of Commerce finds small businesses feel AI could give them a competitive edge. As a result, many opt to stick with their current methods, relying on human judgment and traditional tools rather than diving into the complex world of AI.

Many other solutions — including for cybersecurity, call centers, collaboration and more — have AI built in, allowing organizations to leverage those tools immediately. President Daly noted that she had heard a similar question about GenAI’s impact on competitiveness from leaders of large enterprises. From the perspective of leaders of large businesses, GenAI would allow smaller businesses to level the playing field with greater access to information and expertise and thus allowing them to offer new products and services at much lower costs.

• In 2024, small business AI utilization is mostly allowing a smattering of employees to try out a few apps to pretty up their profile photo, review a contract or transcribe an online meeting.
• The ability to increasingly personalize customer experiences by capitalizing on historical data, for instance, can offer small businesses a competitive edge.
• There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.
• Even when businesses can extract and collect data, they often lack the tools to analyze it effectively, resulting in missed opportunities for improvement.
• While large corporations push forward with digital transformations—using AI for customer service, supply chain optimization, and marketing automation—many small businesses remain reliant on manual processes and outdated systems.
• The Main Street Index, which tracks the health of these businesses, shows they have rebounded from pandemic-related difficulties and are growing faster than pre-pandemic levels.

Enterprise resource planning systems and other foundational technologies also have embedded AI functionalities. Although AI can bring significant benefits to businesses, it requires ongoing investments and human oversight, Hess said. “My advice is to look at it as a tool. It’s not going to solve all your problems,” he added.

Small Business Owners Are Taking Initiative to Learn More About AI

AI technology in data analysis tools such as IBM Watson or Google’s Looker Studio can help you make sense of your business data. These tools use machine learning algorithms to identify patterns and generate visual reports to help you make data-driven decisions more quickly. Taffet said he advises business leaders to identify areas that need improvement or where a market advantage could be boosted further and then consider whether AI could help close performance gaps or create opportunities.

AI-driven platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams streamline communication by automating reminders, assigning tasks, and integrating with other business tools, ensuring that everyone stays aligned without the need for constant check-ins. For example, in customer service, AI-powered chatbots provide 24/7 support, meeting the instant-gratification expectations of today’s consumers while allowing reps to focus on more complex or strategic questions. These chatbots can handle a wide range of inquiries, from answering frequently asked questions to assisting with product recommendations. For example, a small online retailer can implement a chatbot to help customers with product searches, order tracking, and returns, significantly improving customer satisfaction and reducing the burden on customer service representatives. Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool that small businesses can harness to help solve these problems. AI delivers smarter ways to personalize interactions, predict behavior and automate processes.

According to the Chamber of Commerce survey, marketing and communications are the most common uses of AI for small business owners. However, many AI tools can optimize repetitive or mundane business tasks and operations without breaking the bank. Many small business owners still view artificial intelligence tools as too complex or only suitable for larger businesses.

Google.org and Grow with Google are announcing $10 million in funding to America’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and new training to help U.S. small businesses grow with AI. Some 40% of small businesses in the United States are using AI tools in 2024, up from 23% in 2023, according to recent research from the US Chamber of Commerce. Alex Williams is a full-stack developer and technology writer in the United Kingdom specializing in web development and data management. There have also been improvements aimed at preventing the chatbot from giving harmful responses such as illegal answers, the sharing of sensitive financial information, or the adoption of a political position. Sign up today to receive our FREE report on AI cyber crime & security – newly updated for 2024. If this trial goes well, it could ultimately be rolled out across the full government website, made up of 700,000 pages.

AI-powered chatbots can automate simple inquiries, helping SMBs scale their customer service and operate online 24/7 without additional staffing. This strategy can lead to quicker resolution times, an improved customer experience, and a lighter load for customer service agents. Microsoft users interested in helping workers be more productive, especially those considering the paid version of Copilot, might find CDW’s Copilot Readiness Workshop a useful place to start. You’ll get help understanding and overcoming the various technical hurdles that could prevent you from maximizing the technology’s power.

It can also predict future customer behavior, providing suggestions and insights into trends. We both firmly believe that when it comes to AI, the opportunities are enormous and that our way forward to building a new AI economy is by spurring innovation and fostering competition. The best way to encourage innovation while also ensuring safety and security is through a variety of responsible market-based approaches and business models, including open-source AI.

AI: A Force Multiplier for Small Business

During Small Business Saturday and the ensuing holiday season, customer inquiries tend to surge. AI can support customer service representatives by providing recommended solutions and personalized scripts tailored to each customer’s needs, ensuring issues are resolved quickly and accurately. Shopify’s Sidekick serves as a virtual assistant for merchants, helping them with tasks such as writing product descriptions, suggesting marketing strategies, and optimizing store layouts.

This staggering figure underscores the need for innovative solutions like the gov.uk Chat to reduce the administrative burden on citizens and businesses. These are devices for the new AI world of business that will let staff meet urgent deadlines, create amazing content from idea to end-product in a fraction of the time usually needed, retrace steps, and keep everything secure. Visa’s report, which was based on a study conducted by Morning Consult, showed that 69% of U.S.-based SMBs adopted AI within the last year, and 76% have seen business growth as a result. If you implement AI solutions for employee development, gather feedback from your team about their experiences so you can continuously improve the training content and platform effectiveness. Using AI for employee training and professional development can help your small business reduce training costs, improve employee engagement, and reach professional development goals faster. To address these and other questions facing small businesses, we recently convened a roundtable of executives from across the Twelfth District.

With guidance and the right tools, entrepreneurs can overcome these difficulties and use AI to their advantage. AI startup costs are a concern for small businesses with limited funding. However, there are an increasing number of affordable AI solutions available specifically designed for small businesses to help ensure cost-effective integration. Additionally, cybersecurity tools increasingly have AI for threat detection.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is designed to analyze large amounts of data and use algorithms to complete tasks and automate business operations, which can help increase the productivity of its users. The use of this technology is spreading across numerous industries, including financial services, e-commerce and transportation, helping businesses improve training, enhance customer service, facilitate hiring and more. Looking ahead, the small business leaders felt that more tools will be coming on-line that will support customer-facing tasks. An executive from the recruiting industry highlighted GenAI’s potential to ease the task of making initial sales and recruiting calls. They shared that these so-called “cold calls” are repetitive and have a low success rate, which makes it difficult to retain people for these positions (this person reported a turnover rate of nearly 90 percent for this specific role). In the hospitality industry, a participant felt that GenAI allows hotels to offer a more personalized guest experience, including concierge services and improved self-check-in and check-out.

It’s a chatbot that’s designed to help you get the most out of Salesforce. With it, the bot can find information about leads and customers without ever leaving the comfort of the CRM. AI users need to remember that the technology “is a mimic of the human mind,” and is therefore prone to the same faults and biases, Geilich-Parker said. One of the attendees was Ian Matthew Herrington, director of workforce development and training for Health Education Center.

However, to fully capitalize on these opportunities, a concerted effort from both government and the tech industry is vital in bridging the digital divide. Governments can play a pivotal role by offering financial support, such as grants and tax incentives, to mitigate the initial costs of technology adoption. Additionally, implementing digital literacy programs will empower small business owners and employees with the necessary skills to thrive in a digital environment. The future of U.S. small businesses is closely tied to the adoption of digital and AI technologies, which are essential for maintaining competitiveness in a rapidly changing market.

To find the best chatbots for small businesses we analyzed the leading providers in the space across a number of metrics. We also considered user reviews and customer support to get a better understanding of real customer experience. GoDaddy Vice President of Product Laka Sriram told PYMNTS this integration of AI helps reduce the administrative burdens on small business owners, allowing them to focus on growth. AI-driven content creation is a growing field, with businesses keen to produce high-quality content faster and at a lower cost. Offering AI content services helps companies generate SEO-optimized articles, marketing copy, and social media content that aligns with their brand. Using content production tools, you can keep clients’ demand met without compromising quality.

For example, sellers who need assistance with product copy can prompt Sidekick to create engaging descriptions based on specific features. If the expanded trial proves successful, the UK government plans to roll out the chatbot across all of gov.uk’s 700,000 pages, potentially transforming how the site’s 11 million weekly users interact with government services. By consolidating information and providing instant answers, the gov.uk Chat aims to make government resources more accessible and efficient.

Grow with Google is also launching a new AI workshop to help small businesses take advantage of Google’s AI-powered tools. America’s SBDC will incorporate this training — which will feature case studies, demos and hands-on activities including prompting exercises — as a module within their broader AI U curriculum. Developed with input from experts at Google and insights from small businesses, the no-cost training is available on demand at g.co/grow/AIforSMBs. Grow with Google Digital Coaches will also teach the training locally throughout the U.S.

However, many small businesses are lagging behind in this digital transition. Financial management is an important part of running a business, but it’s also complicated and time-consuming – especially if you don’t have a financial background. AI-powered tools like QuickBooks and FreshBooks streamline the bookkeeping process by automating tasks like expense categorization and cash flow tracking. Chatbots use natural language processing (NLP) to understand human language and respond accordingly. Often, businesses embed NLPs on their websites to engage with customers.

These platforms oftentimes provide good but not perfect responses and still cannot be relied upon. Top of mind for several of the roundtable participants was whether the trend toward adopting GenAI technologies made small businesses more competitive with larger companies in their industry. They ChatGPT emphasized that building and training custom GenAI models for their specific business needs was cost prohibitive. This meant that small businesses would likely need several third-party applications, many of which do not communicate and cannot be integrated with one another, to meet their needs.

According to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council’s 2023 Small Business AI Adoption Survey, 83% of small business owners plan to invest in AI in the next year. While some people are concerned about being replaced by AI technology, Herrington believes what was true for computers decades ago is true for AI today. If a job is replaced by AI, it’s replaced by someone who can operate the AI, not the software itself, he said. By coming together, we hope to drive innovation and creativity and further live up to our highest aspirations and ideals that have defined the U.S. for generations. If you could create your own fantasy board of directors, who would be on it? CO— connects you with thought leaders from across the business spectrum and asks them to help solve your biggest business challenges.