2023 has been the year of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the technology becoming mainstream overnight. There are a significant number of AI tools on the market, many of which can solve real, immediate problems for small businesses. But the rapid rise of the technology has created a luxury problem: we are spoiled for choice. This guide provides you with an overview of the best AI tools for small businesses across different categories.
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How to choose the best AI tools for your small business
- Price. As a small business you are likely to work with limited budgets and the AI tools you choose should match your willingness and ability to spend. Price is a good starting point because it forces you to assess the monetary value of the AI solution for your small business.
- Versatility. Some AI tools solve very narrow problems and others have a broader scope. As a small business it is difficult to manage a high number of AI tools, so it is often best to start with a focus on versatility. Tooling for niche problems is usually a big company game.
- Integrations. A suite of tools that don’t talk to each other is difficult to manage and leads to messy processes and data, particularly if you work at a small business. Therefore you should prioritize AI tools that integrate with the rest of your software stack, as much as possible.
- Ease of use. Small businesses don’t have the time or resources to spend too long getting acquainted with new tools. This is why ease of use should be prioritized when picking new AI tools.
Best AI productivity tools for small businesses
Plus AI – the best AI tool for presentations
Love them or hate them, presentations are a core part of doing business. Creating presentations takes a lot of time, a resource that small businesses rarely have in abundance. There are a number of AI presentation tools on the market, but Plus AI is the best choice for users of Google Slides, a popular presentation tool for small businesses.
Plus AI lets you create professional presentations within Google slides. All powered by AI. This saves hours of presentation work. Plus AI stands out in several ways:
- Embedded in Google Slides - the last thing you want to do as a small business is change tools. Plus AI is built on top of Google Slides, one of the most popular presentation tools.
- Full suite of editing features - you can add individual slides to a presentation, rewrite text or remix content into different formats. All in seconds using AI.
- Custom themes - you can use AI to create custom themes or create your own to match your brand.
Price: Free options with paid plans starting at $10/month per user.
Link: Plus AI
Grammarly – the best AI tool for perfect writing
Writing is central to a business of any size, especially as the business world has turned remote. Grammarly uses AI to provide live feedback on your writing, removing the need to spend time on proofreading. This save time for other important tasks and also increases productivity by improving written communication within your small business.
Grammarly has several features that will help improve productivity in small businesses:
- Live editing of anything you write - the Grammarly Chrome extension checks the spelling and grammar of everything being written in the browser.
- Rewriting full texts - Grammarly can rewrite existing text to suit your purpose. For example, you can ask Grammarly’s AI to adjust your writing to be more convincing if you're sending a sales email.
Price: Free options with paid plans starting at $12/month per user. This is a relatively low cost to bear for a tool that optimizes your work to such an extent.
Link: Grammarly
Best AI sales tools for small businesses
Seamless.ai – best for lead generation
If your small business has a B2B focus you are likely doing direct sales, either via email or phone. This requires finding the right leads. This can be a very arduous and manual process process, which includes identifying the leads and then obtaining their contact information.
Seamless.ai is an AI-powered sales prospecting solution that solves this. This AI sales tool includes a search engine to find the right leads, as well as contact details for the leads. Seamless.ai has a suite of features that can power most of the lead generation engine at a small business:
- Integrations with popular tools - Seamless.ai integrates with the most popular CRM tools, such as Salesforce.
- Finding leads directly in your browser - the Chrome browser extension that lets you identify leads based on websites you visit.
- List building - Seamless.ai includes helpful list building features that lets you track all the identified leads.
Price: Seamless.ai includes a free tier and free trials for paid plans, which start at $65/month. Seamless isn’t particularly low cost, but saves a considerable amount of time and can impact the top line.
Link: Seamless.ai
SetSail – best for sales tracking
The sales processes often include many steps, also for small businesses, and you’re going to want to optimize this process as much as possible. This involves analyzing data from your sales process to understand where to optimize. Like many other things in this article, this takes resources and expertise.
SetSail is an AI sales tool built specifically to solve this problem. SetSail gathers data from all your other tools, such as CRMs, video conferencing tools, emails, and calendars to provide AI-driven actionable insights. This frees up time to implement changes and optimize sales processes.
SetSail has a range of helpful features, including:
- Automatic sales team assessments - SetSail will show you which sales reps need additional support and who they can learn from.
- Answers sales questions - get AI-powered answers to key sales questions, such as “what are the top deals at risk?”.
Price: SetSail has a free trial, but no self-serve paid plans. For a small business this is a limitation.
Link: SetSail
Best AI marketing tools for small businesses
Jasper.ai – best for content generation
Search is an important channel for growth for businesses of all sizes, and performing well in search often requires generating relevant content.
It can be difficult for small businesses to stay on top of writing good content. Jasper.ai can help with your content strategy by automatically generating search engine optimized (SEO) content based on simple prompts and templates.
There are many AI content writing platforms on the market, but Jasper is the most versatile and integrates with other popular tools:
- CRM integrations – Jasper integrates with popular CRM tools like Hubspot and Salesforce.
- Project management integrations - integrate Jasper with e.g. Asana, Trello and Jira.
Price: Free 5-day trial with plans starting at $24/month. Pricing scales with the number of words written per month.
Link: Jasper AI
Ocoya – best for automating social media
Social media is a great way for small businesses to engage with their customers and attract new business, but it is hard to get rigth. Ocoya is one of the best AI tools for small businesses who want to be active on social media but don’t have the resources to do so.
Ocoya uses AI to help you generate social media posts and automatically schedule the posts across social channels. This allows you to be present on social media without spending all your limited resources on it.
Ocoya lets you automate most aspects of your social media strategy, making it a very versatile AI tool at a reasonable cost:
- AI-generated social media posts - Ocoya can generate social media content that include graphics, setting it apart from other options in the market.
- Automatic copywriting - get AI-generated copywriting in +28 languages.
- Automate social media posts - posting across several platforms is hard to stay on top of, but Ocoya can automate this for you.
Price: Ocoya offers a free trial period, but has no free tiers. Prices start at $15/month.
Link: Ocoya
