Small Business AI: 7 ways it can help grow your business

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here. According to Salesforce’s Small Business Trends report, approximately nine in 10 small and medium-sized business (SMB) teams are using AI. Sixty per cent say they are currently using generative AI (GenAI) or plan to use it, and 33% of sales teams expect to use it within two years.

As a small business owner, are you ready for it? We’ll break down AI tools for small businesses — its benefits, challenges, the right tools, and how to prepare for an AI-driven future. We’ll also touch on seven ways you can use AI today to start growing your SMB.

Here’s what you'll learn:

• What is AI for small business?
• Why small businesses should embrace AI
• Seven ways AI can help grow your small business
• Best practices for implementing AI in small business
• Challenges in adopting AI for small business
• The future of AI in small business
• What to look for in an AI for small business solution

AI for small business is simply utilising artificial intelligence solutions for remedial tasks that take up time and resources. AI tools are designed to mimic portions of human intelligence, specifically information processing and decision-making. For small businesses, AI offers the opportunity to streamline processes, reduce manual effort, and keep overhead costs down.

While AI deployments for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are typically smaller scale than larger enterprises, they can have a big impact. For instance, with the right customer relationship management (CRM) you can install a free chatbot to respond to customers.

Many small businesses have a small IT team, or none at all. AI-enabled functions, such as process and software monitoring, can help reduce IT issues without adding complexity. AI can support small teams by assisting with smaller tasks and making their overall job more efficient.

Consider the rapid growth of AI adoption a bonus for your small business. It will only get easier for you from here on out. There are several benefits of AI for small businesses, including:

• Improved customer service - 65% of customers now expect companies to adapt to their preferences. AI makes this possible by helping businesses respond more quickly to customer needs and address issues in real time. Chatbots, for instance, can understand the intent behind customer queries and provide real-time answers in context, 24/7, and they continue to learn with time.
• Increased productivity - 76% of small business owners say AI allows them to focus on high-value tasks, as per our Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBE) . Why? Because AI can automate much of the tedious busywork that takes up time, such as inputting data, scheduling emails, and generating reports.
• Reduced costs - AI can also help reduce operational costs by automating tasks that don’t require a human touch, like data entry, appointment scheduling and routine customer service inquiries. Aside from saving time and money, AI can also work during off hours, is less likely to make errors, and can be customised to deliver specific data outputs.
• Better marketing content - Thanks to the rise of generative AI (GenAI), SMBs can now use AI tools to create marketing, sales, product, and blog content faster than ever. For example, businesses can use GenAI to create marketing emails, get ideas for blog topics, or localise social media content for different demographics in less time. That said, human oversight is important here to make sure AI-generated content creation is still engaging, accurate, and unique.

In short, AI isn’t just for big business anymore. It’s an accessible way to work smarter and move faster while delivering the best possible service to your customers. Let’s dive into seven ways you can use it to spark your growth.

With 78% of those who leverage AI saying it will be a game changer for their company, and 71% planning to increase their AI investment in the coming year, SMBs aren’t just dipping their toes in the water. They’re actively betting on AI to drive impact.

If you’re new to the idea of small business AI, a good starting point is to learn the different ways AI tools can unlock new growth opportunities for your company.

To help you discover how other businesses like yours are implementing AI within their own operation, we surveyed 3,350 business leaders to uncover the most popular use cases for AI in SMBs today. Here are the seven business applications that stood out:

1. Automating your customer journeys
2. Getting the best out of generative AI
3. Building smart, scalable website chatbots
4. Recording and summarising meeting notes
5. Simplifying admin and repetitive tasks
6. Transforming customer data to business gold
7. Optimising social media strategies

All of the data in this section come from our Small & Medium Business Trends Report (6th Edition) . Read the full report to uncover the trends and challenges that are shaping how SMBs scale and grow in the age of business AI.

Marketing campaign optimisation is the number one AI use case for SMBs, as per our report.

Leaders are now realising that marketing with AI isn’t just a way to save time. When done right, it can help your SMB build smarter strategies, refine campaigns, and deliver superior customer experiences at every touchpoint, from awareness to loyalty.

For example, you could use AI in your business to segment audiences for better marketing personalisation, analyse campaign performance to refine sales strategies, send out automated emails based on real-time customer information, or produce full-scale marketing campaigns grounded in historical data — all while saving resources that you can allocate to other areas.

Take Scape as one example. With the help of Marketing Cloud AI, the student accommodation provider developed multiple customer journeys personalised to each student’s needs while also setting up custom email offers to send to students at the end of each semester. This helped the company’s sales and rebookings reach an all-time high in just one year.

Generative AI has become the poster child of AI since the arrival of ChatGPT, and for good reason. These large language models (LLMs) can respond to queries and produce content across any topic, in real-time, by interpreting the meaning behind your natural language input.

With 75% of leaders now evaluating or using artificial intelligence, LLMs are the perfect way to experiment if you’re just getting started with AI’s capabilities. For instance, you could leverage AI business tools to produce tailored social media posts for different channels, draft up an email to send to a client, or create a staff training document to distribute to your marketing team.

As an example of generative AI in action, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) recently rolled out the next phase of its AI strategy with ABC Assist . This AI tool locates, fact-checks, and summarises past and current ABC records, allowing creators to quickly find and repurpose the information they need to produce accurate and engaging content in less time.

While generative AI isn’t perfect (we’re all familiar with ChatGPT’s famous hallucinations), it’s certainly getting closer, so much so that 78% of leaders in our survey expect AI to match human capabilities within the next decade.

Chatbots have come a long way from their early days as script-based programmes with a limited number of predefined responses. These days, AI chatbots can understand human language, interpret the context and intent behind queries, and tailor their responses to the needs and tone of every customer.

With that in mind, it’s little surprise automated service chatbots rank in the top five AI use cases for SMBs, and number one in sectors like energy and finance, where complex queries are common and a high standard of customer service is essential.

AI chatbots open a world of opportunities for your business. They can answer queries by assessing the context of customer questions, provide tailored recommendations based on your business offerings, match your brand’s unique tone of voice, and escalate to a human agent when needed. And they can do all of this 24/7 while improving all the time.

Premium global accommodation provider Urban Rest is a great example of a business that has utilised AI chatbots to their benefit. Urban Rest looks after long-term travellers. It’s essential they can provide their customers with outstanding service 24/7.

Enter Agentforce. Urban Rest uses Sales Cloud and Service Cloud to support their reservations and guest relations specialists to keep things running smoothly around the clock. Now they can continuously scale service at the pace needed while also elevating the guest experience.

Urban Rest anticipates that Agentforce will resolve most customer service queries (such as where to locate the WiFi code) automatically, delivering an estimated 25-30% return on investment within 12 months of deployment.

AI chatbots allow you to deliver reliable, rapid service to your customers, saving you time while improving satisfaction. Take a closer look at Agentforce to see how these kinds of AI technologies can help your business grow.

Of those surveyed in our report, 90% said that AI resulted in more efficient business operations .

These productivity boosts aren’t reserved for large-scale tasks like manufacturing and marketing. AI can boost your small business efficiency on a much smaller scale.

Tools like the Aussie-based MyTalkr will transcribe, record, transcribe, and summarise your meetings in real-time. You can then search for information by keywords and share the instant AI summaries with your team.

Helpfully, AI tools like this will also highlight key action items and deadlines automatically so you don’t miss any important details. This can save you hours of manual note-taking, opening the door to efficient communication and more time to spend on other core tasks.

The ability of AI to automate repetitive tasks is a game changer for efficiency. Think of the admin jobs that take up hours of your time, like sending invoices, updating customer records, processing paperwork, and managing calendars. AI won’t just take these tasks off of your plate — it can complete them faster and more accurately than any human, all while working silently in the background.

For instance, you can build and deploy AI models to log sales data, notify you when inventory needs replacing, categorise structured and unstructured business data, or arrange your incoming emails in order of priority. All of this will save valuable time for you and your team, letting you focus on the tasks with high business value that are truly contributing to your growth.

Eighty-four per cent of all SMBs surveyed agreed that complete and accurate data is important for business success. When you have the full picture of all of your customer information, you’ll gain access to powerful insights that make decision-making and predicting needs faster and easier.

We’re now seeing how AI can help on both sides of this equation — both with unifying data so it’s ready to use, and with making predictions based on the information businesses possess.

When it comes to unifying your customer information, AI-driven business solutions like Data Cloud can equip you with the tools to aggregate and activate your data, transforming your fragmented information into a single 360-degree view.

Once your data is all in one place, you can leverage artificial intelligence models to draw patterns and generate real-time predictions grounded in your customer insights. For instance, AI could predict the root cause of customer churn, help you decide which products to prioritise based on sales data, or use historical interactions to personalise upcoming customer communications.

This whole process, powered by AI, turns your data into liquid gold, giving you everything you need to predict customer needs and gain an edge over your competitors.

Health technology service provider Magentus uses Data Cloud to enrich their 360-view of their customers by integrating customer and product information from sources like Databricks into Salesforce. With zero copy integration, there’s no need to move, copy, or reformat the data which saves time and keeps data secure, which is essential in the healthcare industry (given its strict regulations on handling personally identifiable information or PII).

Data security, therefore, is at the forefront of Magentus’s decisions surrounding their use of AI, while they use that data to enhance their understanding of their customers.

We’ve touched on how businesses can use LLMs to generate content, but let’s take a different angle.

AI is also exceptional at social media optimisation. It can analyse all of your existing social media data to find trends, such as which posts perform best on specific platforms, the time of day your target audience is most active, and the CTAs that drive the most conversions.

Based on this information, social media AI can then draft up an optimal posting schedule and suggest adjustments to your content strategy to boost engagement. Based on your input, it could even A/B test different variations to see what resonates and then report back to you with the results.

AI for social media is more than a way to save money and time (although it’ll help with each of those things, too). It’s becoming an essential way to understand your audience at scale and develop content that drives the best results.

AI tools are designed to help existing processes. As a result, they’re not set-and-forget. Instead, SMBs need to develop AI business strategies that address current business needs, potential integration issues, and employee education. Some best practices for implementing AI include:

• Define specific use cases - Some companies make the mistake of rapidly deploying AI models without clearly defining their purpose, but this can lead to businesses that don’t fully understand the automated tools at their disposal. To maximise AI impact, start by identifying specific use cases that AI can help your business with and then research the right tools for the job.
• Consider possible pain points - With digital transformation now essential for SMB success, it’s easy to assume that AI tools will work seamlessly alongside your existing solutions. But this isn’t always the case. If you use custom-built software, for example, it may not be designed to interact with AI tools. In this case, you may need to implement a custom API to make the integration smoother.
• Educate your team - Finally, you should educate your teams on the use of AI tools. This includes operational basics and usage expectations. From an operational standpoint, SMBs should bring in teams before tools are deployed. Lay out clear ground rules for AI usage and explain common functions. Teams need to know what data can be used, how it can be used, and what to do with data once the analysis is complete.

While AI offers significant advantages for startups and small businesses, it also comes with potential challenges.

According to our research, 68% of customers say advances in AI make it more important for companies to be trustworthy. With personalisation at the forefront of customer expectations, SMBs must collect personal data as part of creating meaningful customer experiences. Most consumers are willing to share this data if told exactly what will be collected, how it will be used, and if it will be shared with third parties.

AI solutions can analyse large data sets for commonalities and potential patterns. This helps SMBs craft personalised advertising and sales campaigns. But, if AI tools are compromised, attackers could gain access to protected consumer information, requiring companies to disclose data breaches and damaging consumer trust. To address this issue, SMBs must ensure AI tools fall within the scope of existing security tools, and that all data handled by AI is anonymised and encrypted wherever possible.

According to the SBE Council survey, 85% of SMBs believe that the government must balance regulation and innovation in AI. However, in its current state, the AI market is too fragmented to support widespread standardisation. As a result, SMBs must rely on AI providers to ensure tools satisfy data handling and privacy requirements like those laid out in regulations such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Here are two trends businesses looking to invest in AI should watch for as the technology continues to develop:

Although the rapid development of AI tools has shifted from enterprise-only solutions to commercially available offerings, many of these solutions are surface-level. While they may offer advantages such as automation and personalisation, they’re often afterthoughts.

For example, a data analytics provider might use the term “AI” to describe its collection and analysis process, when in fact AI is only used to evaluate the presence of data outliers. New solutions are likely to put AI at the core of business processes. Examples include PCs that feature neural processing units (NPUs) and applications capable of carrying out large-scale AI processes on local devices without the need for cloud connectivity. According to Gartner, companies will go “all in” on AI-enabled PCs by 2026 .

Right now, GenAI tools are being used to create sales and marketing content, improve chatbot operations, and increase personalisation. As natural language processing (NLP) algorithms improve, however, GenAI solutions will shift toward more industry-specific models that may help improve accuracy and reduce computational demand, according to recent Gartner predictions .

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to AI, for some SMBs, it makes sense to conduct a complete overhaul of existing processes and replace them with AI-enabled tools. For others, AI integration may not make sense, making it a better choice to find solutions that work alongside current processes. Look for AI technology that can adapt to your business needs, rather than solutions that require you to change your approach.

It’s also important to seek out solutions that streamline customer support processes and are easy for staff to understand, use, and apply in practice. We are happy to throw our hat in the ring for consideration:

If you’re looking for an AI solution that’s built for small businesses and that puts you in control, consider the following tools:

• Agentforce: Salesforce’s Agentforce is a comprehensive solution designed to empower teams by providing them with a unified, AI-powered workspace. It integrates various tools and data sources, enabling agents to deliver personalised and efficient support across multiple channels. With features like case management, knowledge articles, and AI-driven insights, Agentforce helps streamline workflows, reduce response times, and enhance the overall customer experience.
• Einstein: Salesforce’s Einstein is designed to help small businesses make smarter decisions. It offers features like predictive analytics, natural language processing, and machine learning to automate tasks and provide insights.
• Sales AI: Sales AI helps small businesses improve their sales processes by providing AI-driven insights, such as lead scoring, opportunity insights, and forecasting.
• Customer Service AI: For customer service, AI offers features like case classification, recommended responses, and next best actions to help small businesses resolve customer issues more efficiently.
• Marketing AI: This AI tool helps small businesses personalise their marketing efforts with features like predictive scoring, engagement scoring, and send-time optimisation.
• CRM Analytics: Einstein Analytics provides small businesses with advanced analytics capabilities, allowing them to explore data, uncover insights, and make data-driven decisions.
• Slack: With Slack, small businesses increase productivity by bringing together people, information and tools into one place. Small businesses can increase productivity with Slack by working more efficiently with automation and AI.
• Integration: Salesforce AI tools can be integrated with other Salesforce products and third-party apps, allowing small businesses to streamline their workflows and maximise their investments.

Remember, the best AI tools for small business functions are the ones that align with your unique business goals. Take the time to understand what you’re looking for, your challenges, and your objectives, then find a smart tool that ticks the right boxes in the context of your business.

Make the most of AI for your small business. From chatbots to generative AI and data entry, artificial intelligence tools offer a host of benefits to help boost bottom lines and keep companies ahead.

Salesforce Starter allows you to try out some of these tools for free. Check out a demo or start for free today and explore AI in business.

Want to learn more about how small businesses are using AI to scale and succeed? Read our full Small & Medium Business Trends Report to discover the latest insights that show how SMBs are embracing AI initiatives and overcoming challenges to drive impact. Or take a look at our upcoming events, where we talk about everything AI and innovation in Australia.