Artificial intelligence (AI) is the talk of the town. It is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, which is expected to reach $2 trillion by 2030, according to Statista. With heavy investment in AI from Microsoft and Google, it has already reshaped several industries and job markets. If you own a startup, it is time to implement an AI strategy. Use the following data-driven ways to automate your business processes.
1. AI for Product Development and Design
Artificial intelligence helps startups improve product design and development processes. You can use AI for all the product development stages for guidance, which makes these processes quick, systematic, and reliable.
For example, you can use AI during the product ideation stage to see how similar products are performing in the market. Market intelligence AI tools like Brandwatch offer AI-based market research that lets you analyze data instantly.
Similarly, AI tools like Vizcom can help with prototyping that instantly converts drawings into visual product prototypes.
It is now easier for startups to compete with the giants with AI. Your competitors might also be using AI, but if you're using it right from day one, you'll have a better chance of creating a product that's more likely to outperform.
Here are data-driven ways AI can be used by startups for product development and design:
- Project requirements gathering
- Data collection and analysis
- Product designing using AI tools
- Prototyping
- Testing
2. Automate and Improve Content Marketing
Artificial intelligence is quite helpful for startups in boosting marketing across all channels. There are tons of AI marketing tools that automate content marketing end-to-end for your startup.
If you are using content marketing to promote your startup, you can automate a lot of its processes using AI. For example, you can use ChatGPT to generate content ideas and briefs. You can use Canva or Midjourney to create images for your blog posts with a simple text command.
AI is extensively used for content creation and optimization. Though AI-generated content is a heavily debatable topic, businesses are doing it and there are specific and sophisticated tools that generate AI content with a simple command.
Tools like Surfer SEO, Frase, and Clearscope use AI and machine learning to improve on-page optimization and help you write better content.
There are also certain content marketing techniques, like content intelligence, that rely on AI. It uses AI and machine learning to measure the impact of content and then develop data-driven insights to improve your content strategy:
The use of AI isn’t just limited to content marketing, though. It is used in email marketing, social media marketing, PPC, content curation, and more.
Oovvuu, for example, used IBM Watson Language Understanding to embed the most appropriate video in news articles automatically based on several factors. IBM Watson created an AI contextuality engine for Oovvuu that finds and embeds relevant videos in articles automatically. This increased ad revenue 35x with a 90% cost reduction.
You need the right AI strategy and the best tool to leverage AI for your startup.
3. Improve Customer Experience with Conversational AI Chatbots
If you want to grow as a startup, you need to focus on one thing: customer experience.
Research shows that 52% of customers will switch to a competitor after just one bad experience, and 73% of consumers say that CX is the most important thing they consider when making a purchase decision:
But thankfully, AI has simplified offering superior customer experience.
According to a recently published Harvard article, generative AI is quite helpful for startups in improving customer experience. Language models can interact with customers in real time and work throughout the customer journey.
For example, you can recognize customer needs using chatbots and generate specific conversations using AI to understand customer needs. You can do this by integrating a language model into your chatbot.
Most chatbots in the market are powered by AI and use conversational AI. They can engage with customers in conversation like a human. Conversational AI chatbots use previous interactions and customer history and are able to understand language.
Here is an example:
Not only do these chatbots engage in a real conversation with your customers, but they use data, intent, and contextual maturity, which significantly improves customer experience.
Start using a conversational AI-powered chatbot on your startup website to improve CX and significantly reduce the number of support tickets.
4. Increase Workforce Productivity and Efficiency
One of the key issues startups face is related to their employees. Fewer employees, lack of proper job structure, overwork, and improper HR departments create a lot of issues for startup employees that negatively impact productivity, efficiency, and revenue.
Statistics show that 37.2% of startups valued between $1 million and $10 million have only 1-10 employees. This is where it gets problematic — too many tasks and too few employees.
This is an area where AI is extremely helpful, but few startups invest in AI for their workforce. Research shows that 68% of employees want their employers to use AI technology, and 89% believe AI can help them with almost 50% of their workload.
Here is an example of AI in the workplace and how it can improve productivity:
You can use a conversational AI chatbot for your employees to help them solve basic work-related problems. Otter.ai is such a tool that helps your employees automate meetings and notes.
Several routine and daily tasks that consume your employees' time can be automated with AI. For example, financial reporting, research, data collection and analysis, reporting, customer support, etc.
For example, Starbucks uses AI to generate reminders that tell its employees when certain equipment needs maintenance, which helps both the company and the employees. Starbucks avoids breakdowns, and employees don’t have to spend time checking different equipment during working hours for maintenance.
You need to use AI for your employees, too, to make them more productive and efficient.
Final Words
Artificial intelligence is quite helpful for startups across all sectors. There is a lot you can gain with a simple AI tool. The way you use data and AI is, however, important.
You need to evaluate and analyze AI decisions to ensure things are moving in the right direction. In most cases, AI just helps you make a data-driven decision. When you are using AI for multiple business processes, it gets overwhelming to analyze every output and you tend to start relying on AI completely — and that’s where it gets risky.
AI is good, but you have to run and manage your startup. Make decisions yourself, and use AI for assistance.
Need help on how AI can help you grow your startup? Get in touch with us, and we will be happy to give wings to your startup.
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