AI for entrepreneurs: a guide to the best tools and strategies

Imagine giving your team the tools to turn your business idea into a minimum viable product in weeks, not months.

AI for entrepreneurs makes this possible. It increases your startup’s runway, reduces build costs and helps you acquire paying customers faster.

In this article, you’ll learn how AI improves every part of the entrepreneurial process. You’ll explore the top AI tools and courses for entrepreneurs and learn practical tips to make AI work for you.

What is AI for entrepreneurs?

AI for entrepreneurs is using artificial intelligence advancements to start a business faster and more cost-effectively.

Instead of spending months developing an app and finding customers, entrepreneurs use predictive and generative AI tools to speed up tasks like coding and testing. AI also supports customer acquisition by performing tasks like sending personalized sales emails with a one-sentence prompt.

For example, here’s an email created using Pipedrive’s AI email writer:

Entrepreneurs also use AI to:

• Save time by using AI accounting software to create and send invoices, allowing their team to focus on revenue-generating activities

• Save budget by using an AI website builder to design their site in-house

• Find the best job candidates using an AI recruitment platform to analyze resumes for experience, job history and skills

• Prioritize prospects by using an AI sales assistant to perform pipeline data analysis and score leads

AI tools make the business landscape more competitive, as anyone can use them to turn an idea into an app. However, AI is not a silver bullet. Founders must still sell customers (and investors) on their ideas.

Users must also fact-check AI responses, as generative tools can “hallucinate” and provide incorrect answers or information.

7 best tools with AI for entrepreneurs

AI tools for entrepreneurs cater to almost every part of the entrepreneurial process. Find the right tool with this shortlist of seven powerful solutions.

1. Pipedrive: best for sales and marketing

Pipedrive AI analyzes historical sales data, automates email outreach and personalizes reminders and recommendations. These functions help you find the best prospect, save time and close more deals.

For example, Pipedrive’s AI Sales Assistant analyzes deals, contacts and emails to find ways for entrepreneurs to improve their sales processes.

The assistant may flag prospects less likely to convert so you know where to spend your time. It can also send meeting reminders, track email open rates and offer personalized productivity tips.

Other Pipedrive AI offerings include:

• Pipedrive Pulse, an AI lead qualification feature that scores leads based on buyer intent and recommends next steps to help you focus on the best prospects

• An AI email writer (mentioned above) that analyzes previous conversations to create personalized and engaging emails that increase conversion

• An AI email summarizer that condenses long email chains so entrepreneurs can quickly pick up where they left off

Pipedrive also helps you get the most from your CRM with personalized AI recommendations for third-party tools to further streamline and automate your sales process.

Pricing: Sales Assistant and other AI tools are available on Professional, Power and Enterprise plans. The Professional plan starts at $49 per seat per month, billed annually.

2. Wix: best for building a website

Wix’s AI Website Builder uses a simple conversational interface and a series of business-related questions to create a fully functional website in minutes.

A chat-based experience asks a series of questions about your business. The more information you provide, the more likely Wix’s design will meet expectations. Wix uses your information to generate a site in minutes from templates, complete with core pages, apps, business tools, images and text.

You can further customize the site using drag-and-drop tools to refine the design, text and layout. Once you’re happy, Wix will publish and host your finalized site.

Other key features include:

• A generative AI content creator that accelerates copywriting by writing your site’s content from a single prompt

• An AI image creator that creates photo-realistic images so you don’t have to hire a photographer or buy stock imagery

• A global content delivery network (CDN) that caches website content like images to help sites load quicker, boosting your Google site ranking

Wix requires an ongoing subscription to keep your site live, and you can’t move websites out of the Wix ecosystem. However, the price can be worth it as it includes hosting.

Pricing: Wix’s AI Website Builder is available on every plan, starting from $17 per month. You’ll need the Core package ($29 per month) to create an e-commerce store.

3. Adobe Firefly: best for visual design

Adobe Firefly is a suite of generative AI tools that helps entrepreneurs design ads, brochures and other sales collateral using simple text-based prompts.

Firefly lets you and your team create custom logos, Facebook profile pictures or ad images without extensive design experience.

If the result isn’t quite right, add more prompts to refine your results or edit your original prompt to get a completely new result.

Other key features include:

• Functionality to generate how-to or sales videos or animations from simple text or image prompts

• Image modification options, such as removing backgrounds or replacing elements, to tweak designs and edit photographs

• Audio and video translation that localizes sales videos from English to individual markets

Adobe uses “generative credits” tokens to track AI requests, which, depending on your plan, can limit your options. Some processes, like text-to-image requests, cost one credit, while more complex processes, like generative video, cost more.

You must be careful with the number of requests you make each month to avoid running out of credits.

Pricing: Adobe Firefly has a limited free plan with 20 generative credits. Premium plans start from $9.99 per month for the Standard package, which comes with 2,000 credits.

4. GitHub Copilot: best for coding

GitHub Copilot is a code completion and automatic programming tool developed by GitHub and OpenAI. It lets technical founders write code faster and accelerate product development.

Copilot helps developers work more efficiently by providing code completion suggestions while they type. Users can also ask Copilot to create tests, fix code that fails and automatically migrate code to a different programming language.

Other key features include:

• An interactive chat interface that helps you talk through code with Copilot

• Code explanation and documentation that references your existing repositories

• Code refactoring that makes existing code cleaner and more effective

Copilot won’t create a fully functioning application from a simple prompt, so it isn’t for founders who can’t code. However, it will significantly increase the productivity of those who can.

Pricing: Copilot offers a free plan with 2,000 execution minutes (GitHub’s way of tracking AI requests) per month. Premium plans with 3,000 execution minutes start from $4 per user per month.

5. Workable: best for hiring

Workable’s HR platform boasts several AI capabilities to help entrepreneurs source, screen and interview candidates.

Workable Assistant, the platform’s conversational AI tool, helps entrepreneurs hire more efficiently.

You can ask the assistant questions like, “How many candidates have applied for my IT role?” and direct the assistant to complete tasks like posting a job or sourcing candidates.

Other key features include:

• A job description creator that writes descriptions based on job title

• Personalized emails to candidates that explain the reasons they were chosen

• A resume parser that summarizes resumes and highlights key information

While Workable’s generative AI capabilities are good, the tool doesn’t let users edit prompts.

Pricing: Workable’s Starter plan begins at $169 per month for up to 20 employees.

6. Intuit Assist: best for accounting and bookkeeping

Intuit Assist by Quickbooks is an AI-powered bookkeeping assistant that uses generative AI models to automate accounting tasks and deliver personalized advice about your startup’s accounts.

Intuit Assist monitors your company’s transactions, cash flow and overall financial health, alerting you to overdue payments and suggesting specific actions like sending payment reminders.

A conversational AI messaging feature lets entrepreneurs check their finances by asking, “How much revenue are we projecting next month?” Intuit Assist uses sales data to forecast revenue and can suggest ways to increase it.

Other key features include:

• A daily snapshot of company accounts that covers cash on hand and upcoming bills

• Smart payment reminders that get sent automatically to boost cash flow

• Automated invoice and bill creation that extracts data from receipts and handwritten notes

Intuit Assist works best when there’s a lot of financial data to analyze, so it may not be suitable for founders at the start of their entrepreneurial journey.

Pricing: Pricing starts from $35 per month. A free 30-day trial is available.

7. ChatGPT: best for content creation

ChatGPT is a generative AI chatbot that helps entrepreneurs create compelling and engaging sales copy in seconds – even without copywriting experience.

ChatGPT can act as a copywriter for your startup, helping you create copy for anything from pay-per-click (PPC) ads and social media posts to websites and whitepapers.

The more context you give ChatGPT, the better its output. For example, include your target audience, a word count and examples of existing copy you like. You can refine the tool’s copy with additional prompts.

ChatGPT can also proofread your existing content and recommend ways to improve it. For instance, it might restructure sentences or ask you to be more specific about the benefits of your product’s features.

Other key features include:

• GPTs, custom versions of ChatGPT for specific purposes like writing a job ad or turning text into video

• Dall-E, a text-to-image generator that works like Adobe Firefly

• Deep research, a relatively new feature that automatically conducts multi-step research projects

Like many generative AI tools, ChatGPT can hallucinate and provide incorrect answers. Fact-check the tool’s responses to avoid publishing inaccurate information and damaging your reputation.

Pricing: ChatGPT has a limited free version. The Plus plan costs $20 per month.

Why use AI as an entrepreneur?

AI lets entrepreneurs do more in less time at a lower cost.

It’s no wonder two-thirds of McKinsey Global Survey respondents say their company regularly uses AI – nearly double the percentage from the previous survey.

Here are the top benefits of AI for entrepreneurs:

Reduce costs by doing more yourself

AI helps employees work more efficiently and lets them tackle more tasks themselves. These outcomes help you overcome the biggest hurdle to starting a business: funding.

According to a Gallup study, 60% of prospective business owners say a lack of money is their biggest challenge.

For example, entrepreneurs can reduce their web development budget by using Wix’s AI tool to do the heavy lifting in building their site.

AI can generate a good foundational site because its machine-learning algorithms reference millions of websites before creating something new. Entrepreneurs get expert assistance at a fraction of the price.

AI removes budgetary pressures so entrepreneurs don’t have to choose between building a website and hiring more salespeople or developing a better marketing strategy. Business owners can invest their savings in other areas of their business.

Launch faster by automating processes

AI automates a lot of the time-consuming administrative and creative work of building a business, like finding the right sales prospects and designing a website. The resulting time savings help entrepreneurs launch businesses faster without sacrificing work quality.

According to Pipedrive’s State of AI in Business report, 79% of businesses that have adopted AI say they were motivated by its ability to increase productivity.

Here are more ways founders can use AI automations to accelerate their entrepreneurial journey:

• Creating a detailed marketing plan using ChatGPT

• Launching and optimizing a PPC ad campaign using Google’s AI ads tool

• Forecasting revenue figures for a business plan using a predictive sales tool

Automating tasks with AI frees entrepreneurs to focus on value-adding tasks like speaking to prospective customers.

Scale internal processes alongside business growth

Traditional businesses often struggle to meet growing customer demand. AI startups can scale quickly by using AI to improve internal processes.

Need to respond to a growing number of customer requests? Install an AI chatbot on your website to answer customer queries and pre-qualify prospects for your sales team.

Want to develop a new product offering? Ask your AI coding tool to create a prototype you can build on.

Subscribing to a new AI plan or integrating new technology can help entrepreneurs capitalize on a surge of interest following a successful ad campaign.

Best AI courses for entrepreneurs

Becoming educated on how to use AI is key to making it work for you. Pipedrive’s research shows that almost half (50%) of businesses that haven’t embraced AI cite lack of knowledge about tools and uses as the reason for their hesitance.

Courses and podcasts can help if you’re sold on AI’s benefits but want to learn where to start and how to maximize its value.

Here are three places to start:

1. AI for Everyone

AI for Everyone is a beginner-level, non-technical course that explains how AI technology works and shows you how to spot opportunities to use it.

Unlike other introductory courses, AI for Everyone focuses on business applications and teaches you how to implement AI workflows in a professional setting. Andrew Ng, the founder of DeepLearning.AI and a co-founder of Coursera, teaches the course.

The four-week course covers the following topics:

• What is AI?

• Building AI projects

• AI in your company

• AI and society

Pricing: The six-hour course is available on Coursera, which charges a $49 monthly subscription.

2. The Complete Prompt Engineering for AI Bootcamp (2025)

The Complete Prompt Engineering for AI Bootcamp teaches entrepreneurs practical prompting and coding skills to help them quickly build websites and applications.

The course teaches entrepreneurs how to better prompt coding tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney and GitHub Copilot. Learners get to apply the practices to over 15 real-world projects.

The course covers the following topics:

• Principles of prompting

• Standard text model practices

• Advanced text models

• Multimodal models

• Agent architectures

Pricing: The 20-hour course costs $119.99 and is also available with a monthly Udemy Personal Plan costing $20.

3. Generative AI Business Sprint

The Generative AI Business Sprint, taught by MIT Sloan faculty, explores the generative AI landscape and teaches entrepreneurs how to use generative AI to improve their productivity and creativity.

The course is structured around the sprint cycle approach used in Agile project management, from Sprint goal setting and relays to a Sprint review and retrospective.

The course covers the following topics:

• What is generative AI, and why is it relevant to business?

• How does it work?

• When should you apply generative AI?

• Where is generative AI heading?

Pricing: The six-hour course costs $1,750.

How to make the most of AI in your business

AI democratizes entrepreneurship, but there’s still plenty founders can do to grow their businesses faster.

Use the following tips to maximize the value of AI and increase your return on investment.

Find the right tool fast

Entrepreneurs serious about using AI to build a business quickly can’t afford to waste time trialing dozens of tools.

Choose one of the tools shortlisted above or use the following criteria to evaluate your own shortlist:

Eliminate any tool that doesn’t meet your criteria, then sign up for a demo or free trial of the remaining tools. Dedicate time to trialing as many tools as possible and commit to the one you feel most comfortable with.

Don’t prioritize AI at the expense of human hires

AI is a powerful tool for fast-tracking business growth, but can’t replace human experts. There are still many things AI tools can’t automate and plenty of tasks that require a human’s eye and expertise.

Use the following table to decide which tasks to automate and which to handle yourself:

When your startup does hire, verify candidates are familiar with AI tools. It will be easier to onboard candidates, and they’ll adopt existing workflows faster – making them much more productive.

Integrate AI tools where possible

AI tools analyze vast amounts of data – and the more they can access, the better their outputs. Native integrations connect two or more AI tools, facilitating data sharing and automated workflows.

For example, Pipedrive integrates with Quickbooks, meaning you can connect your CRM to your AI bookkeeping tool to sync contacts and invoices between the platforms and eliminate double data entry.

Connecting AI tools with Pipedrive is simple. In the case of Quickbooks, go to “Tools and apps > Invoicing” and choose “Quickbooks”.

Finish the installation flow by entering your login details and granting access to both apps.

Finally, you’ll need to configure the Quickbooks integration preferences and choose which Pipedrive fields the integration will auto-populate in an invoice.

Final thoughts

The power of AI reduces the time and resources needed to start a business, allowing committed AI entrepreneurs to code a digital product, build a website and develop an automated sales process quickly.

AI tools are a game-changer. They won’t do all the heavy lifting but will streamline and accelerate workflows.

Want to make it easier to spot high-converting leads and automate your outreach process? Use Pipedrive’s AI-driven CRM and sales assistant to hit your revenue targets faster. Try Pipedrive free for 14 days.