Work Smarter, Not Harder: Top AI Picks For Small Business Owners
Artificial intelligence (AI) is accessible, practical, and offers serious advantages to small businesses that embrace it. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or managing a tiny yet mighty team, the right AI tools improve efficiency, reduce costs, and create better experiences for your customers. Get a sense of the options available to you with this comprehensive breakdown of top AI tools tailored to small businesses, and our advice on how to use them.
Understanding AI Tools For Small Businesses
AI refers to systems that mimic human intelligence for tasks such as problem-solving or decision-making. In a business context, AI is applied to data analysis, task automation, content generation, and much more.
Small businesses use AI technology because it performs tasks quickly and efficiently, a game-changer for staff with limited time and resources. It’s effectively an always-on, scalable assistant that steps in to help humans on repetitive tasks so your employees are free to do what they do best: focus on strategy, growth, creativity, and more complicated, larger-picture tasks.
Most AI tools you hear about within a business context are powered by large language models (LLMs). These models are trained on massive datasets to recognize patterns and make associations between common phrases, words, or topics. This allows LLMs to perform a range of complex tasks and communicate in a human-like manner. Think of them as highly advanced reasoning engines, trained to imitate how we think and communicate.
For instance, training an LLM-powered chatbot on common customer questions helps streamline workflows within your customer service team. Train your chatbot to answer simple queries while learning which phrases indicate more complex requests that should be routed to a human representative.
How AI Benefits Small Businesses
Small business automation tools streamline the way organizations like yours operate. Some of the most practical use cases include:
- Automating mundane tasks: Employees spend as much as 40% or more of their time on repetitive tasks. Tasks like data entry, appointment scheduling, or level 1 customer service, are handled without human intervention when AI is involved.
- Smarter decision making: AI tools analyze data quickly and provide insights that make better, faster business decisions. AI’s ability to process and review large amounts of data quickly and accurately helps your team, from marketing activities to inventory management. These tools uncover patterns and insights that may be inadvertently overlooked by humans, too, opening up more possibilities for improvement.
- Improving the customer experience: AI chatbots, personalized recommendations, and 24/7 support tools help small businesses deliver first-rate service when customers want it. Implementing these tools delivers on shoppers’ desire (and expectation) for instant gratification and personalization.
- Cost-cutting: AI technology helps control labor and software costs without sacrificing service. It’s like getting an extra pair of hands without having to pay for the additional headcount.
- Streamlined supply chain management: In product-based businesses, AI has the potential to reduce supply chain management errors by 20% to as much as 50%. That’s time, money, and headache saved.
Our 10 Favorite AI Tools To Start Using Now
Best content creation AI software
AI-generated content tools are game-changers for small businesses seeking to spur inspiration for marketing and creative teams. Two recommendations of content creation AI software include:
- Copy.ai: This AI writing tool is designed to generate marketing copy, blog content, social media captions, and almost any other type of written content. It’s especially helpful for businesses with limited marketing resources, offering templates for everything from product descriptions to email campaigns. A wholesale wine business would benefit from using Copy.ai’s account-based marketing (ABM) templates to craft marketing emails that target their liquor store clients.
- Synthesia: This AI software solution creates videos from text prompts in more than 120 languages. It’s best used for social media content and creating video tutorials. If you’re preparing to open a new location for your artisan cheese business, upload a press release with all the details. Synthesia will take a press release about your pet supplies store’s grand opening and create a video spokesperson that entices viewers to attend. This tool is an ideal fit for businesses that don’t need a large volume of content, with subscription options that include a limited free plan.
Best marketing AI software
AI small business marketing tools are valuable for a range of tasks, including building email campaigns, creating photo and video assets for social media, and optimizing websites. Use them to analyze audience behavior, improve campaign ideas, or find gaps in your marketing strategy.
- AdCreative.ai: This tool quickly generates assets from your marketing data. The platform assesses images and text against your marketing goals for maximum efficiency. Let’s say a children’s boutique knows a large part of its customer base includes grandparents who shop for their grandchildren. Input that information into AdCreative.ai, and it generates ads that feature Grandma or Grandpa buying little bowties and stuffed animals. The platform offers a free trial with 10 complimentary asset downloads.
- Ocoya: Tap into Ocoya for help with social media captions and hashtags, scheduling posts, and tracking performance. It’s particularly powerful for e-commerce businesses as it integrates with platforms like Shopify. A local chocolatier, for instance, would be able to generate Instagram images and captions for its upcoming Valentine’s Day specials, and then use Ocoya to create a posting schedule for this content. Test out Ocoya with a free trial to see if it’s the right fit for your business.
Best customer communication AI software
AI tools help small businesses provide instant, consistent, and scalable support. Products like AI chatbots for small businesses improve customer experience while reducing the need for round-the-clock staffing.
- Tidio: Tidio combines live chat with AI-powered chatbot capabilities. This platform is ideal for small businesses that want to offer continuous customer service but don’t have the staff to maintain it 24 hours a day. Its AI assistant automates conversations across chat, email, and social media platforms in multiple languages. If a customer is browsing your online furniture store’s website outside normal business hours, they can still get the help they need. Tidio is there to answer when they need assistance finding the right-sized coffee table for their new living room. Tidio’s subscriptions include a one or two month free-trial, depending on the plan tier.
- Forethought: This AI tool streamlines and handles customer service through automated chat, voice, email, and other channels. Forethought has the power to independently make decisions and take action without the need for constant human input (known as agentic). This platform is particularly useful for understanding customer intent and responding in kind.
For example, a customer who writes in all capital letters would be recognized by Forethought as unhappy. They would then be routed to the next available human agent to prevent further escalation and improve the likelihood of retaining that customer. Forethought offers a Proof of Value demonstration in lieu of a free trial.
Best AI tools for operational efficiency
The right AI tools optimize and streamline back-office tasks like scheduling, data analysis, and financial forecasting, giving you the additional time and confidence you need to run and scale your business. Try these two products to get your back office in top shape.
- Clockwise: This calendar assistant automatically schedules meetings. It integrates with calendar apps like Google Calendar for easier schedule management. The tool also blocks focus time, resolves scheduling conflicts, offers team availability insights, and offers real-time calendar updates so you automatically see all changes. It’s especially valuable for teams managing busy calendars and juggling multiple responsibilities.
A vape store owner who needs time each week to review inventory would use the flexible holds feature to designate time for this work. If a last-minute marketing meeting needs to happen at the same time ahead of a new brand launch in-store, Clockwise will move the inventory work block to another day. - Motion: This tool puts all projects, tasks, and workflows in one central dashboard. The platform automatically detects and prioritizes your most important tasks so you’ll never miss an important reordering or reporting deadline. Its business intelligence tools monitor project progress and alert you if something is going off-track. For instance, a toy business managing product development for a new board game would use Motion’s AI Gantt Charts to accurately delegate tasks with enough time to meet delivery deadlines. All Motion plans, except its Enterprise subscription, include a free trial.
AI Assist For Your Back Office
Power up your business operations and let AI handle the busywork behind the scenes. Thrive Inventory’s AI Assist integrates seamlessly with your existing tools so you start benefiting right away.
Best AI platforms for e-commerce support
AI tools for e-commerce systems generate product visuals, automate certain customer interactions, and personalize shopping experiences. Use these tools to enhance everything from store design to customer engagement.
- DALL·E: This platform, an OpenAI product (the same parent company as ChatGPT), generates product and lifestyle images from text prompts. Use it to create custom visuals for product pages, generate lifestyle images without the photoshoot and location scouting, and develop ads to drive traffic to your store. Did your skincare line just add a new sea salt scrub to its offerings? Set the tone for a summer product launch and use DALL-E to generate product images against a beachy backdrop. There are free and paid versions of DALL-E.
- Jasper: This AI tool generates copy for landing pages, product descriptions, and pay per click (PPC) ads like Google Ads. Jasper supports more than 30 languages and integrates with content management systems for simplified publishing. It’s a good fit for e-commerce brands that want to add personality to their product listings quickly and efficiently. Let’s say an Italian restaurant is refreshing the copy on its website landing pages. Jasper’s AI brand voice tools allow them to compose copy that reflects their upscale, refined brand image. Jasper offers a seven-day free trial with certain subscriptions.
ChatGPT’s Role As A Small Business Growth Tool
You’ve likely heard about ChatGPT. For small businesses, ChatGPT’s multi-faceted features (free or paid) and ubiquity make it a good entry into the world of AI. Here’s how to test it out across departments:
- As a marketing tool: Try ChatGPT if you’re not sure where to start in your marketing journey. Use this AI solution to brainstorm, seek inspiration, and evaluate your ideas from a different perspective. If your flower shop wants to promote a spring sale, use ChatGPT to generate 10 potential email subject lines.
- As a customer communication tool: Try ChatGPT to power virtual assistants and chatbots on your website. Develop templated responses with this tool as well. Draft instructions for customers experiencing login trouble when trying to access their monthly coffee bean delivery subscription.
- As an e-commerce tool: Generate product descriptions and create marketing campaigns using ChatGPT. Use it to create recipes featuring your new cocktail mixes to add to your product listings.
- As administrative help: Not sure how to write a job posting or need a summary of meeting notes to start your project? ChatGPT is here to kick-start these tasks for you. Use this tool to write a job description that will attract an expert sales associate to your luxury jewelry store.
ChatGPT basic vs. ChatGPT Plus
ChatGPT’s free version is powerful for simple tasks, but some small businesses benefit from upgrading to ChatGPT Plus for access to advanced data analysis and additional features. You’ll no longer be cut off during a brainstorming session due to the free version’s file upload limit. There’s even a Team version that includes everything in ChatGPT Plus, but with shared access.
Paid AI model versions like ChatGPT Plus offer advanced reasoning, longer memory, and faster response times and file analysis. Consider upgrading if you’re using it daily across multiple areas of your business.
Best Practices For Incorporating AI Into Your Small Business
Select the best AI tool for your objectives
Start by identifying your goals for incorporating AI, whether that’s improving bottlenecks, reducing response time to customers, or optimizing your back office. Then, research and sign up to test AI tools designed specifically for those needs. For example, an e-commerce brand already on Shopify might benefit from Shopify Magic to enhance product descriptions. Remember: It’s better to master one powerful AI solution that fits your workflow than juggle several that don’t integrate well.
Power Up
Dive deeper into back-office optimization for small businesses. Continue reading for expert recommendations.
Host team training
Adopting AI is only half the battle. A well-trained team will use AI not only more efficiently, but also more creatively.
After choosing and implementing the right AI service for your small business, your team needs to feel confident using it. Keep in mind that there’s a lot of concern that AI is seen as a replacement, and not as a helper, so be open about your goals and encourage questions and participation in the AI adoption process. Consider assigning an “AI champion” within each department who can act as a go-to person for tool-related questions or troubleshooting.
Set clear goals and monitor progress
Start with a specific objective, like improving customer support response times by 1 minute or publishing content 50% faster using AI-powered tools for writing blog posts. Then, track performance over time to make sure the tools are actually moving the needle. This approach justifies the investment and provides a roadmap for scaling and refining your AI strategy in the months and years ahead.
Write your prompts carefully
The results you achieve with AI tools depend entirely on the quality of your prompt. While each tool will require some nuance, the most important thing is to be intentional and specific. The more context you provide in your prompt, the better the output will be. For instance, “write a marketing email for my kitchen store’s new line of bakeware” won’t be as effective as, “write a marketing email in an excited but measured tone that invites customers to test out their favorite recipes on our new line of cast iron pans.”
Don’t forget human supervision
AI generates content, analyzes data, and automates workflows, but it can’t (yet) match human judgment or context. Always have your team review key outputs at all stages of the process. Human input ensures quality and consistency while maintaining a strong brand voice, even as AI technology does the heavy lifting.
Check if your existing software contains built-in AI tools
Before investing in new tools, audit your current tech stack. Many platforms you’re already paying for have built-in AI features that will help you reach your goals. There may be no need to splurge on new software solutions if you already have access to tools that get the job done.
For instance:
- Thrive Inventory: Let AI take care of your order and receiving busywork. Thrive Inventory has smart tools such as predictive stock forecasting and AI Assist so you know exactly what and when to order. Plus, you can drag and drop vendor invoices into Thrive Inventory and the system will automatically create a purchase order ready for your receiving team, as well as build or update new products in minutes. All your team has to do is confirm, edit, or add to the extracted data.
- Notion: This platform is more than a manual note-taking application. The Notion AI tool helps brainstorm, summarize notes, answer questions, and draft content.
- Gemini: Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) is now integrated into Workspace tools like Gmail and Google Docs. Through Gemini, you’ll get an assistant, coding support, research help, podcast-like audio overviews, and a meeting notetaker.
- Shopify Magic: This tool generates product content from writing descriptions to an AI-enabled image creation tool that edits the photo’s background how you want. It’s also used as a communication assistant through a live chatbot that installs on your site in minutes.
These features often require no extra cost or a low additional cost. At the same time, it’s faster to adopt since your team is already familiar with the platform. Take note of the difference between standalone AI tools and AI-enhanced platforms—both have their place depending on your needs.
The AI Edge: Small Teams, Big Impact
From automating tasks to customer chats, AI is your sidekick, turning time-strapped entrepreneurs into productivity powerhouses. Whether you’re boosting customer service with chatbots or automating your marketing on different social media platforms, embracing AI means you’ll run your business smarter and more efficiently than ever before. With the right machine learning tools, a bit of training and practice, and human oversight, you’re ready to grow and flourish.
The Newsletter For Small Businesses
Weekly expert insights, industry trends, and inspiring stories designed to help you run your business with confidence.
The Only Inventory System That Actually Helps You Run A Healthy Business
Thousands of customers all over the world use Thrive Inventory to run a healthy business.
Thrive Inventory gives you control over all your inventory, sales channels, and metrics, allowing you to make the right decisions at the right time.
Keep Reading
The Newsletter For Small Businesses
Weekly expert insights, industry trends, and inspiring stories designed to help you run your business with confidence.
Try Thrive Free
Add Thrive to your business and maximize your potential. With powerful and easy-to-use products,
it’s time to take control of your business and see what you can do with Thrive.
