AI for Small Business

By Caylin White, Editorial Lead and Growth Manager, Salesforce

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.

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 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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

While AI offers significant advantages for 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 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.

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).

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