Introduction
The world of AI is evolving rapidly, and I'd say we've truly ventured into what I like to call the "Age of AI." With each passing day, there's exciting news about the latest AI model, often about how they're surpassing previous benchmarks and excelling in common use areas. No matter what your view on AI, there's no denying that it's going to be the next big thing, integrating into our lives with potential for major disruption—much like how mobile phones revolutionized communication.
Just recently, I came across a news article about Singapore's Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), Southeast Asia's largest lender, announcing plans to cut 4,000 temporary and contract roles over the next three years as AI takes over human tasks. This move signals a broader trend across industries where AI is not just augmenting human capabilities but also transforming operational models.
While AI can assist in nearly every aspect of our lives, this blog will focus specifically on how it can be used in business, particularly for SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). Let me share my personal experiences and insights on how AI can help your business generate more revenue and operate more efficiently.
What is AI?
AI stands for artificial intelligence and refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans. These machines are fed large amounts of data, where they recognize patterns and make decisions based on this data processing.
Imagine having an assistant that you can communicate with via an electronic device, and they can assist you with tasks such as problem-solving, learning, planning, and more, all with the assistance of the vast data available on the World Wide Web. Plus, they can process that data in mere moments and provide you with an answer based on that information.
AI works by analyzing vast amounts of data to identify patterns and make decisions. This allows it to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as understanding natural language, recognizing images, and making predictions. AI systems become more accurate and efficient as they process more data, continuously improving their performance over time.
In business, AI can be used in various applications, from customer service chatbots to predictive analytics for supply chain management. It can help businesses automate repetitive tasks, analyze large datasets, and provide personalized customer experiences. AI is not just a futuristic technology but a transformative tool that profoundly reshapes how business operates and competes. Those that adopt effective AI strategies enhance their efficiency and profitability and position themselves better to meet the demands of an increasingly digital and demanding consumer.
How Can AI Be Used in Business?
By now, you’ve likely heard of ChatGPT, Deepseek, Claude, and many other AI tools. But what you really want to know is how these tools can be applied in a business context, and more specifically, how they can help your business generate more revenue.
According to research from Frost & Sullivan, 89% of organizations believe AI and machine learning will help them grow revenue, boost operational efficiency, and improve customer experiences.
This blog will delve into the practical applications of AI in an e-commerce setting.
Let’s start by exploring the various ways AI can assist your business operations
Customer Service - Chatbots
Customer service is the core pillar of any business and usually the first contact any customer has. As a customer, I may have various questions about your products, policies, and services. While you, as a business, may have done an excellent job of answering these questions on your FAQ section or policies, I would much prefer to talk to someone who can provide immediate answers.
On the other hand, businesses would not be revenue efficient if they employed staff only to handle inquiries. A balance must be made, and that's where chatbots come in. Early iterations of chatbots cannot be called AI because they were programmed to only give specific answers to specific questions and in most cases, you could only select from a list of topics to talk about. In my opinion, that’s not a chatbot—it's more of a forum
With AI-powered chatbots, they can be trained to handle customer inquiries 24/7 and draw upon large databases such as all the company information, including past cases and best practices, to handle common queries. They offer a more flexible approach than their rigid predecessors and give customers a much better experience. According to HubSpot’s data, 90% of consumers rate an ‘immediate’ response as important or very important when they have a customer service request. AI chatbots can work tirelessly 24/7 with no coffee breaks and support your customers when your support team isn’t available
Moreover, AI chatbots can handle multiple languages, breaking down communication barriers for global customers. Did you know that statistically, 75% of shoppers want to make purchases in their language? Having a conversational AI chatbot ready to deliver multilingual support and chat with your customers or prospects in their native language not only improves customer satisfaction but also means you don’t have to hire language-specific agents if you want to support your global customers effectively.
AI chatbots can also improve customer experience by answering questions and resolving customer inquiries around the clock – no matter the time or day customers reach out to you. That includes off-hours, weekends, and holidays when your human reps aren’t there. More importantly, there are no frustrating wait times – customers can get immediate answers. Plus, AI chatbots can get access to a customer’s previous interactions and purchase history, which means they can deliver personalized support. This ultimately means you don’t have to hire language-specific agents if you want to support your global customers effectively.
In summary, AI-powered chatbots are not just a convenience; they are becoming a necessity for businesses aiming to provide efficient, personalized, and around-the-clock customer service. They help businesses save on operational costs while enhancing the customer experience, leading to higher customer satisfaction and potentially increased revenue
Content Creation
Content creation is a core component of any successful business. No matter the product or service you’re selling, you need content to drive interest and traffic to your website. While you can run advertisements to bring in high-value traffic, giving up on organic traffic would be a mistake.
In my personal experience, AI has been a game-changer for content creation and marketing (which I’ll cover in the next section). It’s helped me tremendously, but probably not in the way you might assume.
Part of my job is to create engaging, high-value content that specifically answers questions like “How can AI be used in business?” I start by researching the topic, understanding user intent, and then expanding to see what other key areas I can cover.
The nagging question is, could I use AI to search for topics and then write the content for me? Yes, but I won’t.
From my personal experience from using several different AI tools like ChatGPT, Deepseek, and Jasper, I’ve found that their content can be repetitive, especially with the use of certain words. Even when I try to alter it with prompts, it doesn’t quite deliver the same level of personalization as a human writer.
So, the way I use AI is for research, brainstorming or asking it to edit a piece I have personally written beforehand and ensure it keeps the main context the same. As with any writer you are bound to have had writer’s block or procrastinate and be in need of new stimulus.
Therefore simple use AI (preferable with internet search)
AI does a wonderful job of scouring massive amounts of data and presenting it back to me in a meaningful way.
I even break down parts of my content with AI, such as requesting it to generate a content structure based on top search results and finding the top uses of AI in business.
In a nutshell, AI has transformed the way I work with content creation by helping me sort out massive amounts of research and suggesting new approaches to my content.
Can it be used to replace content writing completely? No, I don’t think it’s quite at that point. AI is best used as a tool to enhance human creativity, not replace it.
Digital Marketing & Graphics
From analyzing historical data to identifying key customer behaviors, AI can and has been used in several areas of marketing.
My experience with AI in marketing is on the advertising level, especially with Google Ads. If you've already used Google Ads, then you know they deploy their own AI in the form of Performance Max (PMax) ad campaigns, which handle much of the heavy lifting for you.
But there are still hands-on parts, such as adding images, headlines, and additional elements like sitelinks and callouts—areas where AI can assist. Take headlines and descriptions, for example. You can create up to 15 headlines and 4 long descriptions. While you or your marketing colleague likely know the key unique points of the product you're selling, facing the product daily can narrow your perception of it from a customer's point of view or from a different angle.
Thus, I turned to AI to generate headlines and descriptions. Some were ready for testing and use, while others needed editing before implementation. The rest, well, didn't make the cut.
It's important to note that whether your assets (headlines and descriptions) are written by you or AI, you should always monitor their performance. If they're not bringing in a return on investment, they need to be updated or removed.
Another area where AI can assist for Ads is in generating images. I don’t know how many marketers or business owners end up reading this, but I’ve seen a fair share of job descriptions that ask marketers to have graphic design skills with adobe products and or video editing.
Personally, I think it’s very very hard to be good at both, I think you need to focus on one at your day job and practice the other one after work as a hobby or side business otherwise you will end up with subpar work from both.
I digress, but AI can be used to generate images. With advancing improvements in this section its only matter of time before blogs, ads and traditional marketing materials use AI to generate images.
Here are some advantages to AI-generated images over traditional methods:
- Time Efficiency: Instantly generate and edit images.
- Copyright Free: At the time of writing, AI-generated images are copyright-free, assuming they're created purely from text. However, there may be issues if you provide a copyrighted image and ask for minor edits.
- Cost Reduction: If AI can generate images instantly with well-worded prompts, you might not need a team of graphic designers.
However, it's not all smooth sailing. AI has its own disadvantages:
- Quality: I've found that AI-generated images often require graphic design assistance. For example, when I asked for the letter "A" or a human hand, I got images with random symbols or six fingers. You can reduce this problem by uploading a reference image, but quality issues will still arise.
- Copyright Issues: Since AI is trained on existing information, there's a risk of overlap in the work it produces.
- Limited Contextual Understanding: Describing an image to AI can be challenging. Unlike with a graphic designer, you can't rely on shared experiences or understanding. AI will interpret your prompt to the best of its ability, which might not align with your vision.
Drawing from my own personal experience, AI is reliable for basic images and minor edits. You'll still need a graphic designer to make significant changes or, better yet, have your graphic designer learn how to use AI to reduce their turnaround time.
Coding and App Development
AI has been touted as a replacement for programmers. How true this is, I cannot say, as I am not a programmer, and therefore I can’t reliably say if code produced by AI is high quality or even if there is a quality scale.
However, I do have an idea of what apps I would like to have built and how they should function. Therefore, even with my limited knowledge, I was able to create an app (via AI) that could draw upon a database of information to return the cost of a product based on the quantity, with a bulk price table highlighting the quantity range and price, which changes as the quantity the user enters alters. It can even pull up the product description of the product the user selects.
You can view it here: Card Product Cost Calculator.
Asking the AI to create this app was no easy task. I had to provide a lot of information, such as the product names, data table, and descriptions. I then needed it to write the code in a single HTML file with CSS included (HTML and CSS can be in two separate files).
The first few iterations were basic but lacked features to stand out, but I realized I needed to add error messages and guides. After a few more rounds of testing, I managed to get to where it is now. Perhaps it's not the most amazing demonstration of coding via AI, but as a non-programmer, I am very pleased with the result.
According to a report by Gartner, AI and machine learning are expected to create more jobs than they displace by 2025. This suggests that while AI can automate certain tasks, it is more likely to augment human capabilities rather than replace them entirely. In fact, AI can help programmers and developers by automating repetitive tasks, generating code snippets, and suggesting improvements, thereby increasing their productivity.
With this example and the aforementioned ones, I want to highlight that AI is not at the stage to replace jobs, at least not in SMEs.
What it can do is support your current staff and improve their output by providing an additional reliable tool. The last area where AI can be used may replace some jobs, but not at the senior level, is repetitive tasks.
Repetitive Tasks
One of the most transformative applications of AI in business is in handling repetitive tasks. These tasks, such as data entry, data analysis, and data filtering, consume significant time and resources. They are often manual and time-consuming, diverting attention from more strategic initiatives.
In my own experience, I've found that AI can significantly streamline these processes. For instance, I often need to process large datasets, removing certain characters from hundreds of rows of text or replacing the first letter, etc. Traditionally, I would have to use complex formulas or scripts, which can be error-prone and time-consuming. Instead, I turned to AI to automate these tasks.
AI tools can handle these repetitive tasks with remarkable efficiency. For example, I recently had to filter data based on several conditions. Instead of manually setting up filters or writing scripts, I simply uploaded the data to an AI tool and described what I wanted to achieve. The AI processed the data quickly and accurately, saving me hours of work.
According to a study by McKinsey, AI and automation can reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks by up to 40%. This not only increases productivity but also allows employees to focus on more creative and strategic tasks. AI can handle routine tasks like data entry, freeing up human resources for tasks that require critical thinking and decision-making.
By automating repetitive tasks, AI allows businesses to optimize their operations, reduce costs, and focus on high-value activities. This ultimately leads to better performance and a more competitive edge in the market.
Conclusion
AI is not at the stage where it can replace jobs entirely, especially in SMEs. However, it can significantly support your current staff, improve their output, and provide an additional reliable tool. The key is to leverage AI as a complementary technology that enhances human capabilities rather than replacing them.
The future of AI in business looks promising, with continuous advancements creating new opportunities for efficiency and innovation. For SMEs, embracing AI means staying competitive, reducing operational costs, and delivering better customer experience.
Start exploring AI tools that align with your business needs, and remember—AI is here to enhance, not replace, your team's expertise.