The wide world of business moves faster than ever these days, and every company, no matter its size or industry, is looking for ways to work smarter and do more with the resources they have available.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about what AI can do, what it can’t, and what kind of things it might shoulder in the future. But the key thing for businesses to know right now is that there are heaps of practical ways AI can help boost efficiency and get more done.
While AI will never be able to replicate true human ingenuity, creativity, or initiative, it’s undoubtedly very effective at handling manual, repetitive tasks and making business operations smoother in the process.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a business software platform that’s not baking AI into its products. No matter how small you start with implementing AI usage, these tools can help your customers save significant time by handling a range of tasks and responsibilities. And most importantly, unlocking these benefits doesn’t require any specialized technical skills.
User-friendly AI platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot use chat-style interfaces, allowing users to get answers and complete tasks using simple, conversational language. This ease of interaction, along with its substantial processing power, makes AI a valuable asset for any business looking to improve productivity and save time.
And most importantly for partners, AI’s increasing popularity presents major opportunities for companies that can help their customers harness its potential.
5 practical ways your customers can use AI
With AI tools at your fingertips, tasks that used to eat up hours can be done in seconds. Product descriptions or website copy can be drafted in a few clicks, chatbots can tackle customer questions and solve problems around the clock, and valuable insights can be pulled from large amounts of customer feedback almost instantly.
This is where AI really shines: it takes care of the repetitive, manual work, freeing up people to focus on tasks that truly drive value. AI can handle those important but time-consuming business duties, giving your customers back hours to concentrate on activities that impact their bottom line.
What makes AI such an effective time-saving tool is not only its speed but also its versatility. AI can speed up all kinds of tasks, helping your customers reduce overhead costs and increase revenue.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways AI can help your customers—and by extension, the services you can offer them.
- Delivering great customer service
Today’s consumers expect swift issue resolution, and AI can provide immediate answers. AI-powered chatbots offer quick and effective customer support through a chat interface, addressing queries, offering product recommendations, and providing policy information.
An e-commerce business can build a bot that answers common questions about product availability, shipping, or returns. Banks can use chatbots to help customers with balance inquiries, transaction history, or fraud alerts. Chatbots are even used now in healthcare, allowing patients to schedule appointments, get medication reminders, or find out basic health information.
With AI handling customer inquiries, many customers can obtain the information they need independently, significantly reducing the time businesses spend on calls, emails, and repetitive questions.
Chatbots don’t have to be impersonal. By incorporating a generative AI model into your customer’s digital platform, you can create tailored chatbots that are knowledgeable about the business and representative of the brand’s tone and messaging.
This can be easily achieved by using a large language model (LLM), which can be fed specific company data, allowing the AI assistant to develop comprehensive knowledge and deliver accurate, relevant responses.
Such chatbots can quickly be trained using FAQs, past customer interactions, and product information. The chatbot can even be integrated with your customers’ CRM systems to provide personalized responses and escalate complex issues to human agents.
- Streamlining hiring processes
If your customers are struggling to get the edge in the hiring market, AI can help them streamline their recruitment processes by automating time-consuming tasks, improving candidate matching, and reducing bias.
One key application is resume screening, where an AI tool can quickly analyze large volumes of applications to find the most qualified and suitable candidates based on skills, experience, and predetermined keywords without the need for humans to spend time removing inappropriate applications.
AI can also help source candidates by scanning various online platforms to find potential hires who match the job requirements. This can broaden your customer’s talent pool fast and help them discover passive candidates who may not have applied directly. AI-powered tools can conduct initial interviews too, by using chatbots or video analysis, assessing candidates’ responses, and providing consistent, unbiased evaluations.
Predictive analytics can even be brought into play to boost retention. By analyzing historical hiring data, AI tools can help identify candidates who are most likely to succeed in a role, improving the quality of hires and reducing churn.
- Conducting market research
Staying competitive in today’s market requires a strong understanding of current trends. Regular research into product trends, customer needs, and competitor performance is crucial for adapting in a dynamic business environment.
As any business executive will know, however, carrying out this essential research is time-intensive, and the collection and analysis of data from numerous sources involved in creating a valuable and relevant report takes time. Dedicating resources to do this can be especially challenging in a fast-changing market.
AI tools can streamline this process by gathering and organizing information quickly. Their ability to search the internet for relevant data and present it in an accessible format makes for fast competitor analysis, providing access to key information on things like product launches, marketing campaigns, pricing strategies, and customer feedback without the need to trawl the internet.
Plus, AI can assist in developing buyer personas to understand target markets, guide marketing strategies, and generate insightful SWOT reports for data-driven decision-making.
In order for your customers to maximize efficiency and obtain valuable results, they will need to provide clear and specific instructions to the AI tool. A good prompt could be something like, “Execute a SWOT analysis for a roofing business operating in Nebraska.” (Training on how to make the most of AI functionality is another great added-value service that you can deliver for your customers.)
- Managing calendars
Sometimes, the process of scheduling an appointment can take more time than the appointment itself. For busy individuals, coordinating meetings can be a significant time drain, but AI offers a solution by efficiently identifying optimal meeting times and facilitating quick bookings, eliminating the need for lengthy email exchanges and calendar comparisons.
Whether you want to help your customers offer seamless, instant appointment booking to their clients or streamline meeting arrangements with suppliers, clients, or other stakeholders, AI can simplify calendar management.
AI-powered tools can analyze an executive’s calendar, preferences, and priorities to automatically schedule meetings. These tools can coordinate with multiple participants, find mutually available time slots, and send out invitations.
For extra efficiency, AI can continuously analyze users’ calendars to identify inefficiencies, such as too many back-to-back meetings or insufficient travel time, and suggest adjustments, like moving meetings, adding buffer time, or declining low-priority requests. And it can study upcoming meetings and surface relevant information, including attendee bios, agendas, or other useful materials.
AI-powered calendar tools can also integrate with email, project management software, CRM systems, and travel apps to provide a unified view of team commitments. For example, they can automatically add flight details to the calendar or sync deadlines from project management tools.
AI chatbots can also function as a booking system. By providing available time slots, confirming appointments, and generating reminders, they can eliminate the need for manual communication and allow for round-the-clock appointment booking availability.
- Analyzing data and supporting decision-making
Business data can be a goldmine of information, revealing key insights about the most profitable products and services, cash flow trends, and inventory forecasting.
However, processing the vast amounts of data generated daily is a demanding task, requiring regular attention to maximize its value. This can be time-consuming, even for experienced spreadsheet users. AI can streamline this process by rapidly analyzing complex business data and delivering accessible, actionable reports, helping your customers get more return from their data.
AI can be used to collate historical data from various sources, from sales and inventory to customer behavior. Machine learning algorithms can identify patterns and predict future outcomes, helping to optimize processes, such as inventory management or resource allocation.
Retail businesses, for example, can use AI to help predict demand for products and optimize stock levels, reducing overstocking and waste. Manufacturing companies can forecast equipment maintenance needs to prevent downtime, while logistics organizations can enhance delivery routes based on traffic, weather, and demand.
For AI tools to generate customized reports, they need access to relevant business data. For example, financial performance reports require proprietary information like income statements, balance sheets, and expense details. It’s important to note the risks involved in sharing sensitive business data with public AI tools.
Offering your customers access to AI tools embedded within business software can be a secure and efficient solution. These integrated AI assistants have automatic access to data across the business, enabling them to provide your customers with a detailed analysis and uncover valuable insights that might otherwise be overlooked.
Help your customers get the most from AI with affordable data talent
With all the benefits it can provide, AI is a powerful asset that gives your customers more time to focus on growth. To make the most of it, though, they’ll need a partner like you to guide them throughout their AI implementation.
The potential for time-saving applications can already be found across all kinds of business functions—and as AI technology advances, its capabilities will expand even further, generating even more opportunities for partners to deliver exceptional AI services.
Building out your AI bench now with certified Data Engineers puts your practice in the best position to seize the AI opportunity as demand from your customer base grows. With numerous tools readily available, a skilled AI team can uncover a near-endless array of AI-infused services to add to your practice’s offerings.
If you want to supercharge your AI services and get maximum value from this unmatched opportunity, you need AI and data experts in your corner. At Revolent, we recruit, train, and place talented data professionals, giving your practice access to the cost-effective, delivery-ready talent you need to be your customers’ go-to partner for AI implementations.
Take the first step towards maximizing your data investment with certified Data Engineers.
