AI Tools For Small Business (Tips and Best Practices)

Key Takeaways

• AI frees you up from repetitive tasks like data entry and appointment scheduling, and focus on strategic priorities like product development or targeted marketing.
• To get the most benefit from AI, SMBs should clearly identify specific use cases and potential integration issues before adopting tools.
• Although AI adoption grows, data privacy remains a key concern. Ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA, applying safeguards, and securing data are essential for AI success.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now mainstream and hasn’t stopped advancing business. In fact, it’s gaining momentum. According to the latest Salesforce’s Small and Medium Business Trends Report, 75% of SMBs have invested in AI in some capacity. And one-third have implemented it fully in their businesses. AI is now a portal to connect to customers, keeping them interested in your business.

But are you ready for it? If not, we’ve got you. We break down AI tools for small businesses, from benefits to challenges and how to choose the right tech stack.

What is AI for small business?

AI for small business is simply utilizing 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. 

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) can use AI to automate various tasks, create AI agents like Agentforce to improve customer experience through advanced chatbots, personalize marketing campaigns with generative AI (Gen AI), and optimize operations.

While AI deployments for 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.

Why small businesses should embrace AI

With the growth of AI, it will only get easier for you, from here on out. There are several benefits of AI for SMBs like:

Improved customer service

Our research shows that 48% of SMBs have seen significant impact of AI on customer experience. AI makes it possible to respond quicker to customer needs on prospects’ preferred channels and address issues in near real time.

AI agents are a good example. Using machine learning (ML) algorithms, these agents are trained to answer common customer questions using large data sets. The more data used, the better the initial outcome, but these tools can also learn as they interact with customers over time.

And, when AI tools are integrated with CRM databases, SMBs can analyze customer interactions and create personalized offers and messaging for different customer segments. This can help make customers feel special and boost long-term loyalty.

Increased productivity

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBE) survey reports that 76% of small business owners say AI allows them to focus on high-value tasks, such as developing new products or services or creating targeted marketing campaigns, driving increased productivity. This is often accomplished by automating manual or repetitive tasks.

Consider the collection and verification of customer data. Rather than teams spending their time and resources inputting and checking data manually, AI can automate these tasks and increase overall accuracy.

Reduced costs

AI can also help reduce operational costs by automating tasks that don’t require a close human touch, such as data entry, routine customer service inquiries, appointment scheduling, and follow-ups. AI is an especially cost-effective choice for large-scale data analysis projects since it can work during off hours, is less likely to make errors, and can be customized 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. Generative AI uses a combination of large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP) to answer straightforward questions.

For example, businesses can use GenAI to create marketing emails, get ideas for blog topics, or improve business operations. The caveat, however, is that AI is best suited for tasks that are simple and standardized. Overuse can lead to decreased consumer engagement because AI-generated content can begin to appear formulaic or repetitive. To maintain a unique voice and perspective, it’s still vitally important for humans to oversee AI content creation.

Best practices for implementing AI in small business

AI tools are designed to augment 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

To maximize AI’s return on investment (ROI), start by pinpointing the specific challenges or opportunities where AI can make a difference for your business. Once you have clear use cases, you can focus your research on tools designed to address those needs. 

Peer influence plays a role in AI adoption. Many companies rush to implement AI quickly without a clear plan.Now this quick-to-adopt approach can lead to businesses that don’t fully understand or utilize their AI tools.

Consider all 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 purpose or custom-built software, for example, it may not be designed to interact with AI tools, which require continual connectivity and conduct ongoing data queries. To avoid creating new challenges for yourself, it’s important to consider possible pain points and research which tools can integrate with your current software.

In the case of legacy tools or custom-built solutions, you may be able to use a customized API — a software interface that allows two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. But it’s better for SMBs to complete this task before AI tools are up and running to avoid common issues like missing or lost data.

Train your team

Finally, companies must educate their employees on the use of AI tools. This includes operational basics and usage expectations. From an operational standpoint, SMBs should bring in staff before tools are deployed. Explain common functions — those that interact with existing tools and those that are entirely new.

You also need to lay out clear ground rules for AI usage, especially regarding customer data. 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.

Challenges in adopting AI for small businesses

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

Data security

While AI adoption grows, concerns over data privacy remain important but are declining. With personalization 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’ll be collected, how it will be used, and if it will be shared with third parties.

41% of SMBs using AI  still considers security as one of the major concerns about AI. And that’s why businesses must prioritize AI governance, explainability, and compliance with European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other regulations to protect sensitive information.

AI solutions can analyze large datasets for commonalities and potential patterns. This helps SMBs craft personalized 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 anonymized and encrypted wherever possible.

Standardization

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 standardization. SMBs must rely on AI providers to ensure tools satisfy data handling and privacy requirements like those laid out in regulations such as the GDPR and the CCPA.

Challenges in adopting AI for growing businesses

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

Data security

According to our research, 68% of customers say advances in AI make it more important for companies to be trustworthy. With personalization 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.

Standardization

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 standardization. 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).

Salesforce AI for small business

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

Agentforce 360

Agentforce 360 is your digital helping hand across the entire business. It’s an “agentic layer” that lets you build, customize, and deploy intelligent AI agents for sales, service, and more without any heavy coding. It includes Agentforce Builder for quick agent creation, Agentforce Voice for realistic conversations on phone and chat, and Intelligent Context to connect agents to your business’s real data (like CRM records, PDFs, images).

Customer 360 Apps

Salesforce’s Customer 360 applications now come Agentforce-ready. This means sales agents, service agents, healthcare agents are built into the platform. These agents work alongside your team, using the Atlas Reasoning Engine to balance creative AI with clear business logic so you get reliable automation and helpful insights across sales, support, and operations.

Slack AI

Slack has AI features that make collaboration‌ easier. Slack AI helps your teams summarize conversations, generate key action items, draft messages, and surface relevant files, all inside Channels. It connects with Salesforce data in real time, so your sales, service, and marketing teams can act faster.

Making the most of AI for SMBs

Get started with Salesforce Starter to explore the best AI tools designed for small businesses specifically. Give your team the tools they need along with intelligent automation, personalized engagement, and actionable insights.

Start your journey with a Starter Suite today. Looking for more customization? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations today to try out Agentforce 360.

AI supported the writers and editors of this article.

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