3 areas of business affected by AI and how you can expect the changes
When it comes to business, we can all expect that we start to see rapid changes as technology progresses. Your business may have just started out as a small idea.
One that you nurtured and grew for as much as possible. This was before taking that plunge into the world of business and launching your idea to the masses. You may have stayed up for several nights, perhaps looked at things such as branding and how best to bring a product or service to the industry or market. You may have worked hard at home and now have the joyous task of running a business location thanks to success and growth. So what next for your business? Is this this time you delve into technology? Technology always changes, this is certainly the case with AI.
The thing many entrepreneurs have to take into account is that as we progress in business, what we see today may not be exactly what we see tomorrow. Technology is an evolution process and is always changing. Launches of new tech that we can use, applications, software systems, AI and cloud services that changes tasks and make the business easier to work with and digest. So what can you do to stay ahead of the game?
Artificial intelligence is something that is here to stay. We won’t be seeing robots anytime soon perhaps in your small business, but AI can still help transform the way certain areas of your business performs. With that in mind, here are some of the changes in business that you may see when it comes to the inclusion of AI and what you can expect from them.
Changes when it comes to eCommerce
AI is beginning to embed itself in all aspects of eCommerce business. From the growing number of self-serve checkouts we see in shops to advanced security that we use when it comes to entering business locations. Many eCommerce businesses may already be using forms of AI, and you may be too. After all, most businesses have something to sell, whether direct to customers or within the trade. So how will AI make changes in this area of the business?
Creating customer-centric searches
There are talks of different software options that now can be embedded into your eCommerce site and make a search very user centric in terms of what the customer is after. The AI element can take things like search terms previously, or even look at the things that have been stored and saved on a smartphone, for example, and tailor the search of your products to match up to what the customer is after. As a business, you could use this AI to make apps for your business smarter and more applicable to each individual customer. This only increases the positivity of a customer experience.
Retargeting potential customers
It can be staggering to understand that a big percentage of your sales leads are not followed up, and this is when AI can really help you to make the most of these that are missed and convert them into actual sales. It can capture things like keyword searches, people who have left items in the checkout and not completed the process, and even things like contact forms that may have been missed.
Changes with insurance and the way it is conducted
Insurance is an old and, lets face it, a highly regulated industry to be in. This is because there is so much at stake when it comes to insurance and so many options that not only businesses can have but what they can offer their customers. This is why insurance companies can and have been one of the slowest industries to take up the integration of technology and AI, but it is also an industry that has started to embrace it and the advantages that come with it. Insurance companies usually have a lot of time-consuming paperwork to get through. This is when implementing things like Insurance AI can help. However, with the increase use of AI we are starting to see insurance companies use AI and cloud services for help with areas within the industry such as sales and marketing, risk assessment and also the operations side of things.
It can help put insurance customers first
When it comes to putting customers first, this is ultimately what an insurance company wants to do, and so the implementation of AI systems allows for these things to be managed more effectively. Risk and also the structure of an insurance policy may have gone under more scrutiny thanks to advancements in technology that can evaluate the areas far quicker, and perhaps even highlight areas of change that may not have been picked up with human intervention. The areas of insurance that we can see this being mostly effective would be Automotive insurance, health insurance, and operational efficiency when it comes to insurance policies that businesses need day to day.
What this might mean for insurance companies?
AI has the potential to transform the insurance experience not just for the customer but for the business that provides the policies. It can be very frustrating with a lot of grey areas initially, but this is where the integration of AI can take away some of that element of surprise. Especially when it comes to claims being made under the policy. While insurance companies want to provide what they can for their customers, they also want to ensure that they cover all bases themselves. This is when the technology can cover them in all aspects of it.
Changes with marketing
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly becoming an important part of many industries and this also includes marketing. Marketing as an industry, and marketing as you use within your current business setup. However, are you fully aware of how AI changes the business of marketing or indeed help you when it comes to marketing your products and services? Here are a few things to consider.
Product and content recommendations
Often you can’t always assume you know exactly what the customer wants, and while you can do what you can enhance your website with recommendations and suggestions regarding other products and services, using AI technology can help you to make this much more specific to the customer that is using your website. They can target the customer not just based on the keystrokes of your business website, but also when it comes to browsing history and what they have been looking at on their smartphone or computers.
Scheduling and being able to extend reach on platforms of social media
We all know that social media is such a huge art of daily lives. At least 70% of people will look at platforms like Facebook twice a day and check out their “feeds” for the latest updates. This is when the AI technology can help you take more advantage of social media reach and help you to organically grow your audience, just by being seen more. AI can help with scheduling content so that you can reach people. It can work out the algorithm in terms of the best posting times and what times you may see the most engagement. It can also look at keywords and how best to utilise them into the content that you are sharing. Social media is a big way that you can share your business and brand, and as well as being an integral part of marketing businesses that focus on this daily. So knowing how to act and when can make a big difference to your output and the results that you see from it.
Customer service
AI can also help when it comes to customer service, and as this can be a big element of the marketing umbrella for any business, it is worth mentioning briefly. The inclusion of things like chatbots can help to avoid any issues being made when it comes to lost sales as well as being able to respond to customers quickly. In a world where we expect the answer straight away, this can give your business a huge advantage.
How can you market your products and services?
Last of all, the way you can use AI is to make advertisements directly about your products and services more directly to the customer that you want to reach. You can use specific search words that a cloud based system can tell you will help get reach, as well as initiating the best way to advertise. Simply by the collection of certain data.
In conclusion
It is worth nothing that AI is something that isn’t going to go away, and before we realise it AI changes the way we do business. Targeting different industries and causing less disruption that has likely to have been seen in the past. While it can still be seen as a bit of a buzzword, there is no denying that businesses are already including certain elements of AI into the business plans, and even with the use of robots for jobs in manufacturing and also taking on tasks like customer service, it is only going to get bigger. The question is, are you going to embrace it yourself in your business?
