AI for small business guide: how to work smarter

AI-powered software for small businesses helps users manage the competing demands of running their operations independently. AI tools save time, reduce stress and improve productivity in almost every business area.

In this article, you’ll learn how AI for small business works and which tools to consider using. You’ll also learn how the right software can help you manage your company more effectively.

What is AI for small business?

AI for small business helps entrepreneurs run their businesses more efficiently and effectively.

By using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, small business AI tools reduce or eliminate the time it takes business owners to fulfill their responsibilities and make decisions. The software analyzes business data to:

• Optimize and automate workflows

• Streamline repetitive tasks

• Deliver actionable insights

• Make intelligent predictions

• Recommend next actions

Entrepreneurs in startups and small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) face the challenge of having too much to do in too little time. Bank of America’s 2024 Business Owner Report highlights that pressure can negatively impact a business owner’s work-life balance.

Of the 70% of small business owners who “made tradeoffs to maintain their business’s profitability”, 45% said this involved working more hours.

AI small business software helps solve this issue. In a US Chamber of Commerce study, 86% of small business owners who use AI tools said the technology helps them operate more efficiently.

AI tools also help small business owners with many other aspects of entrepreneurship. In the same research, 91% of entrepreneurs who use AI predict it will help their businesses grow in the future.

How AI can help small businesses

AI-powered software can save time, reduce stress and provide insight for small business owners in the following areas:

Sales

Sales can be one of the most demanding and time-consuming small business operations.

From tracking the customer journey through the sales funnel to processing transactions, sales involves significant admin. It also generates a lot of data, which can be challenging to track and evaluate manually.

AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) software like Pipedrive solves this problem. It analyzes sales and customer data to:

• Forecast sales and project revenue

• Evaluate and prioritize leads

• Identify opportunities in the sales pipeline

• Suggest next actions for sales reps to take

• Streamline workflows in the sales process

• Generate content for sales outreach like cold calling videos

• Produce detailed insights and reports

Below is one of the AI sales features in Pipedrive, AI Sales Assistant. The tool suggests the next best action for salespeople to take on deals in the sales cycle:

For e-commerce businesses, AI small business software can analyze stock to make predictions for inventory management. It can boost online sales with interventions like personalized product recommendations for customers.

Marketing

An AI CRM also delivers valuable insight and support for small business marketing. The software can:

• Generate customer insights to support personalization strategies

• Conduct customer segmentation to create more effective email lists

• Create blog content with specific keywords for SEO

• Generate content for social media marketing activities

• Predict customer churn to support retention strategies

These features combine to help small business owners devise effective marketing strategies and deliver on them efficiently.

Added AI functionality like email campaign content creation speeds up the process of delivering personalized marketing messages to your target audience – directly from your CRM.

Customer support

AI-powered chatbots handle early-stage customer interactions on behalf of small business owners.

Using machine learning and natural language processing, they provide nuanced, relevant and up-to-date responses to customer queries.

Website AI chatbots also have the ability to direct more complex queries to human agents at the right time, delivering a positive AI customer experience.

These tools save time and reduce stress for entrepreneurs, helping business owners provide round-the-clock customer service without constant hands-on involvement.

Productivity and project management

Productivity tools use AI to help small business users make the most of their available time. For example, some calendar apps use AI to recommend meeting times based on participants’ availability.

Note-taking apps use artificial intelligence to summarize the content of recorded meetings and conversations.

AI-driven project management software recommends how to move a project forward. By analyzing project data, it can show users how to plan their time and approach complex tasks.

Internal and customer communication

AI email management software, like Pipedrive’s AI email writer, helps small business owners manage their day-to-day email communications.

Using machine learning and natural language processing, these tools perform sophisticated tasks like:

• Writing emails in a user’s tone and style with generative AI (or gen AI)

• Summarizing the contents of lengthy email threads

• Analyzing the probability of deals closing in email discussions

• Flagging high-priority emails in a user’s inbox

By helping small business owners handle the demands of email management, the software saves time, minimizes distractions and reduces unnecessary efforts and stress.

The 7 best AI tools for small business

Now that you know how AI can benefit small businesses, explore the eight best AI tools available and how they help entrepreneurs.

1. Pipedrive: all-in-one solution

The AI-powered features in Pipedrive’s sales-focused CRM provide small business owners with a wide range of support.

AI Sales Assistant

Pipedrive’s AI Sales Assistant conducts AI-driven data analysis to deliver insights and recommended steps throughout the sales process.

Analyzing deal data and sales activity, it suggests the next best actions to boost sales. Its “better opportunity” feature also alerts business owners to deals they may have overlooked.

Matching open sales opportunities to the attributes of past won deals, the AI Sales Assistant highlights deals with a higher chance of success than the deal a rep is currently working on.

These AI-powered features aid decision-making in sales, helping business owners increase sales revenue faster.

AI email creator

Pipedrive’s AI email writer generates suggested email wording based on prompts provided by business owners, speeding up the emailing process.

Users describe the email they want to write, specifying its length and tone. Pipedrive’s email writer then generates the requested text. The tool detects each user’s language style, leveraging generative AI to produce matching copy that resonates.

AI email summarizer

Pipedrive’s AI email summarizer analyzes email threads and summarizes their contents.

As the image above shows, the tool assesses the sentiment of emails with prospects and evaluates their “readiness to buy”.

These thorough email summaries help business owners quickly assess their chances of closing a deal and determine their next steps.

2. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot and writing assistant suitable for individual users and businesses.

The AI tool supports small business owners by:

• Creating content for social media posts, blog articles and other small business marketing activities

• Being a brainstorming partner, suggesting multiple ideas for activities like creative content marketing, as in the image above

• Automating customer interactions via integrations with customer experience and helpdesk software, allowing business owners to provide customer service at scale

3. Perplexity

Perplexity is an AI-driven research tool that answers complex queries by performing tasks like analyzing trends, comparing frameworks and summarizing contrasting viewpoints.

Perplexity can help small business owners by:

• Conducting market analysis and competitor research, as in the example above

• Producing AI-generated insight to inform business planning and problem-solving

• Reporting on industry trends and business news

4. Copy.ai

Copy.ai is an AI content creation tool that generates a wide range of content for small business owners to use in their marketing activities.

Examples of this AI-driven content include:

• Social media posts, podcast scripts and SEO content – including metadata

• Descriptions of products and services for website and ad copy

• Repurposed text, e.g., articles from interview transcripts (like case studies) or social media messages from blogs (as in the image above)

5. Notion

Notion is a productivity and project management platform that leverages AI to aid workflow efficiency.

Mainly, Notion’s AI-powered features help small business owners by:

• Summarizing meeting notes and lengthy documents, as shown above

• Generating structured templates for business workflows (e.g., financial planning)

• Translating documents in multiple languages

6. Grammarly

Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant designed to refine copy and enhance communication.

Grammarly AI assists small business owners’s content efforts by:

• Recommending ways to make the language in a document or email clear and engaging

• Suggesting structural and high-level editorial improvements to create significant impact, as in the example above

• Suggesting edits to align with the business’s tone of voice or style guidelines

7. Google Sheets

Part of the Google Workspace suite, Google Sheets is a cloud-based spreadsheet tool with AI features powered by Google’s Gemini AI assistant.

The AI functionality in Google Sheets aids small business owners by:

• Providing intelligent insights to help users organize their spreadsheet data (e.g., highlighting trends, generating pivot tables and suggesting ways to sort the data)

• Suggesting formulas for users to apply to spreadsheet data (e.g., SUM, AVERAGE and IF statements) to perform calculations automatically

• Recommending ways to visualize spreadsheet data effectively with automatic chart suggestions, dynamic dashboards and other presentation features

Pipedrive integrates with Google Workspace to allow customers access to these features without leaving the CRM.

All of these AI tools can solve some common problems for entrepreneurs. However, as every business operation has different needs, choosing the right AI software for your small business is essential.

Factors to consider when choosing AI solutions for your small business

When deciding which AI software to use in your small business, there are many questions to address in addition to pricing.

Here are five critical factors to consider when assessing your options:

Best practices for using AI solutions for small business

AI solutions for small businesses offer great value to business owners. Users must proactively engage with the tools to unlock their full potential, so here are some helpful tips to make the best use of AI business optimizations:

• Give AI tools good data to work with. A small business AI tool will need customer data alongside sales data and information about your business to deliver the best assessments and recommendations. Most platforms can import this information automatically from other products. If a tool requires a little upfront data entry, it’s worth taking the time to do this.

• Stay on top of product updates. With AI technology evolving rapidly, small business software providers frequently update their products. If you stay informed on these developments, you’ll get even more value from the tools you invest in. It’s good practice to follow these updates and stay informed about all the ways the software can support your small business.

• Train team members on the software. When onboarding your team to a CRM or other AI small business tool, ensure every user understands the software and how to use it effectively. Some software providers will deliver live training to new users as part of their service.

• Pair AI recommendations with human thought. The real value of AI small business tools lies in how users evaluate their output. Some AI-generated recommendations will be the perfect prompts for a particular business context, while others will be less relevant or timely. To get the most out of these tools, business owners should evaluate every AI-driven insight and decide which to act on.

By following these steps, you’ll quickly experience the benefits of new AI software and gain additional value from your investment over time.

What is the future of AI for small business?

With advancements in AI occurring almost every day, future AI solutions will likely deliver even more insights and time-saving benefits for small business owners.

One possible development is that AI technology for small businesses will become more industry-specific. In its Generative AI Predictions for 2024–2028, Gartner suggests:

In the future, small business owners may choose from a wider range of tools that meet niche business needs or solve industry-specific problems.

Another possibility is that AI small business software will become even more sophisticated. In its 2025 AI Business Predictions, PwC anticipates that: “2025 will bring significant advancements in quality, accuracy, capability and automation”.

This prediction follows an established trend of rapid innovation in the AI space. Tools like ChatGPT and Claude now integrate with business functions like customer support and content generation to offer seamless operations and scaling.

If you’re interested in staying updated on market trends and new technology, keep an eye on widely available technology news. You could also listen to relevant podcasts like The TED AI Show and Small Business, Big AI.

Final thoughts

AI software for small businesses can save time, improve productivity and deliver insight.

With support for almost every aspect of small business management, the technology can benefit businesses of all sizes, from startups to more established companies.

Pipedrive’s sales-focused CRM includes AI-powered sales software and email marketing software. These features help business owners make their sales and marketing efforts more efficient and effective.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial to see how Pipedrive can help you streamline sales, marketing and email management in your small business.