The market for AI-powered business solutions has skyrocketed in recent years, and it’s not slowing down any time soon. In fact, the AI market in the U.S. alone is expected to grow by nearly $600 billion in the next five years, from $243.7 billion by the end of 2025 to $826.7 billion in 2030.
What does this mean for business owners looking to tap into the AI revolution? You’ve got options – lots of them.
The question is, how do you sift through those options to find the right solution for your business? This article is designed to help you make sense of the AI market madness and understand how to find tools that will help you achieve your goals.
1. Define Your Business Goals for AI Adoption
AI can deliver a great deal of value to an organization, but not every business wants or needs the same features, functionality, or support. Given that, it’s best to determine your goals for AI implementation first. As Simon Sinek would say, “start with why,” and go from there.
Here is a list of the key benefits AI can provide to get you started:
- Enhanced efficiency: AI tools can help teams run faster and smoother, reducing the need to involve others whenever possible.
- Time optimization: By reducing mundane tasks through AI automation, employees can dedicate their time and energy to creative problem-solving and exploring innovative solutions.
- Improved decision-making: AI can provide additional solutions and insights to complex problems, expanding the range of possibilities and improving problem-solving capabilities.
- Bias reduction: Data-driven insights help mitigate human biases, leading to more informed and less impulsive decision-making processes and better overall outcomes.
- Improved quality of services: AI tools can support better customer experiences, cutting-edge product innovation, increased agility, and greater productivity – all of which lead to improved quality across the range of services a business offers.
2. Key Features to Look for When Selecting AI Tools
Learning what AI can do for the various departments and sectors within your business will allow you to streamline your search and focus on the tools that will deliver on your specific needs. Below, you’ll find a brief look at what AI tools provide for different functional areas, as well as examples of tools that are already on the market.
| Human Resources | |
|---|---|
| Features | Example |
|
Peoplebox.ai, which manages candidate screening, performance, goals, employee engagement, and career development via a single, intelligent platform. |
| Business Development | |
|---|---|
| Features | Example |
|
Reply.io, which generates leads via multichannel conditional sequences with unlimited mailboxes, converts website traffic into booked meetings, or hires AI SDR Agents to handle it for you. |
| Program Management | |
|---|---|
| Features | Example |
|
Forecast.app, which is an AI-powered project and resource management tool that allows you to plan, run, and track projects in one place. |
| Engineering | |
|---|---|
| Features | Example |
|
ChatGPT and other public large language models (or LLMs), which can support engineering teams in a variety of ways, including providing feedback, solving equations, and writing or debugging code. |
| Operations/Finance | |
|---|---|
| Features | Example |
|
Planful, which allows you to elevate your financial decisionmaking with intelligent, AI-driven insight. |
3. Evaluate ROI and Measure AI Impact on Your Business
Once you have a solid understanding of what you want AI to do and what it is capable of doing, you need to determine how to evaluate the return on your AI investment. What key performance indicators will allow you to track your success? For instance, if you are aiming for increased efficiency, how will you measure that over time? If revenue growth is your target, can you align with your finance team to understand how to gauge the impact of AI? This will allow you to justify your investment, if necessary, and to make a strong case for continued experimentation with AI in your business.
Best Practices for Choosing the Right AI Tools
In addition to the three-step process above, there are a few best practices to consider when choosing an AI tool for your business.
- Prioritize usability and adoption. If a tool is overly complicated or not intuitive, it will go unused.
- Vet data storage locations, and determine whether your data will be used to train their models. It’s important to understand where and how your data will be stored and whether it will be used to train their AI models. Depending on your security requirements, this will be an important consideration.
- Assess vendor credibility and support. Is the company behind the tool reputable, and are there easy ways to access support if and when you need it?
- Balance innovation with practicality. Having the tool with the most bells and whistles isn’t necessarily the best option. Choose the best tools for your needs, always.
- Keep evolving. Revisit and refine your AI strategy regularly, using data to assess overall impact. And listen to user feedback to understand where you need to make improvements. AI is a tool. It does not replace your team, and their opinions matter in the ultimate success of AI implementation.
Need to cut costs, increase revenue, and operate more efficiently? Dualboot Partners’ AI experts can show you how.
