Intrigued by AI like ChatGPT but unsure where to dive in? We outline 24 of the most useful AI tools to help SMEs stay productive and ahead of the curve.
Most of us don’t realise it but we are already using artificial intelligence (AI), or at least its core technologies like machine learning, in our day-to-day digital lives. These technologies are already running behind the scenes on everything we use from search engines like Bing and Google to entertainment platforms like YouTube and Spotify.
So when ChatGPT became publicly available in late 2022 you could be forgiven for thinking the AI revolution started then. It has actually been bubbling away since we started telling computers what to do decades ago.
Anyone who has used OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool are struck by its ability to write articles, outlines and even instructions for Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and for being able to research topics with clarity and seaming ease. It’s important to point that ChatGPT is only up-to-date as far as late 2021 so use it with caution and discretion.
Force multipliers for your business
But many of you had already taken the plunge to use AI long before ChatGPT arrived. For example, Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant many of us use as a spell and grammar checker across our various email and social media, Trello helps small business teams to collaborate and organise tasks and Evernote employs AI to assist with organising and searching notes.
In my day-to-day work I’ve been using Otter AI for transcribing, Canva for graphic design and Motion to stay organised.
Last week I listed 19 Irish businesses that are pushing the envelope on AI.
I don’t believe AI can ever replace humans but it certainly can augment how we do things and save us time. Think of it as a force multiplier.
AI tools can take many forms from chatbots and CRM systems to email marketing tools, voice assistants (Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant), natural language processing (NLP), predictive analytics, virtual meeting tools, content creation tools, data analytics, fraud detection, virtual assistants and e-commerce recommendation engines. Your choice of tools depends on the specific needs and objectives of your business.
Here are some of the handy tools that could be used by small businesses up to medium businesses and even teams within corporates to employ artificial intelligence gainfully:
AskYourPDF
This is an AI-powered text analyser that lets you extract key information from PDFs quickly and easily. It even summarises key points.
Beautiful AI
This is an AI-powered presentation software to create exquisite business presentations with no design skills. Just add your text and your content will transform into elegant slides. It comes with more than 65 smart slide templates as well as pre-designed slide galleries.
ChatGPT
If you’ve already been using this then you’d know that it is an AI chatbot that generates human-like responses to text-based prompts. With the right prompts you can do everything from market research to writing business plans, SEO-friendly articles, and more. The platform is an AI language model trained by ChatGPT that uses deep learning algorithms to respond to your text prompts.
Compliance AI
This platform can help small firms to stay up-to-date when it comes to regulatory requirements. It monitors and analyses regulatory changes, automates regulatory tasks and generates reports, helping reduce the risk of penalties.
DALL-E
DALL·E is an AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. Users can generate a certain number of images for free every month and may purchase more. It was created by OpenAI, the same people who brought you ChatGPT. The software’s name is a portmeanteau of the Pixar robot character WALL-E and the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali.
Grammarly
Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant supports clean writing with suggestions that help you compose bold, clear and mistake-free text. It works particularly well as a desktop app that then works seamlessly across your various email and social media platforms of choice.
HubSpot
Want to create more targeted marketing campaigns? HubSpot’s AI-powered software can automate lead nurturing, content creation, social media management and more, including insights into customer behaviour and preferences.
Intercom
Irish-led but born in San Francisco, Intercom is a customer communications platform that uses AI to help businesses provide personalised customer support. Intercom helps businesses deliver ongoing engagement to prospects and customers through personalised and in-context communication across channels, including in-product, messaging, email and more. Intercom’s technologies are used by more than 25,000 organisations worldwide, including Amazon, Atlassian and Lyft Business. More than 600m end users actively use Intercom every month, sending more than 500 million messages.
Jasper
This is an AI writing assistant that analyses seed words and then creates phrases, paragraphs and documents based on the subject matter and tone of voice. It has 50 AI content generation templates including blog posts, emails, marketing copy Facebook ad generator, press releases and more.
Looka
Looka helps you generate logos and other marketing collateral using AI. Could be handy for entrepreneurs striving to create a brand identity quickly and efficiently.
Lovo AI
This is an AI-powered text-to-speech generator that converts written text into natural sounding audio in various voices and languages. It can create 400 natural sounding voices in more than 100 languages.
Midjourney
This is an AI text-to-image generate that allows users to create visuals for various purposes, including marketing materials.
Murf
An AI-powered voice generator, Murf enables anyone to convert text to speech, which can come in handy for voice overs for things like podcasts and ads. It also comes with a built-in video editor that allows you to create a video with a voice over.
Pictory AI
If you want to create stunning videos but don’t have the big production budgets, then Pictory AI could be the tool for you. This is an AI-powered video generator that create video content from existing published content, create shorts from longer videos and create voiceovers, apply background music and more.
Ocoya
This is an AI-powered system to automate a business’s social media posting. Optimised for copywriting it also makes cross-platform scheduling easy.
Originality AI
This is a plagiarism detection tool to ensure that content is original. It compares your content against a database of already-published content across billions of web pages.
Otter AI
I can’t sing the praises of Otter AI more highly. It uses AI to transcribe meetings in real-time and with great accuracy and even time stamps key moments. Can be used for gathering notes but also putting together subtitles for video and more.
Pencil
This is an AI platform that generates creative ad designs, copy and generate digital advertising campaigns. Could be useful for in-house marketing teams.
Quillbot
This is an AI-powered paraphrasing and rewriting tool that helps you rephrase and restructure text while keeping its original meaning.
Resume.io
This tool helps you create professional resumes tailored to specific job openings using the power of AI. Exports as Word or PDF and even has a cover letter creator tool.
Salesforce GPT for Customer 360
At Salesforce’s first AI Day event in New York recently, CEO Marc Benioff revealed that all of Salesforce’s products are now infused with trusted AI innovation to help companies of all sizes, across all industries, access generative AI to deliver trusted, AI-created content across every sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT interaction, at hyperscale.
Synthesia
Synthesia is an AI-powered video avatar generator that creates professional videos based on text script. Another potentially powerful tool for time-poor and cash-strapped in-house marketing teams.
Wordkraft AI
This is a writing tool that helps you to write clear and optimised content. You can use Wordkraft’s free business plan template to create the first draft of a business plan, for example. Its interface is easy to use and navigate. Remember, however, AI is still far from perfect. Make sure that all the information you put into your business plan is correct.
Xero
AI-powered accounting platform Xero automates bookkeeping tasks, reconciles banking transactions and can generate reports that save time and reduce the risk of errors.
Main image at top via DALL-E
