Startups run on tight budgets and are under pressure to scale fast. Small teams juggle everything from marketing and sales to customer support while racing against time.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools lighten the load by automating tasks to speed up productivity and providing data-driven insights that fuel growth.
In this article, you’ll explore the most effective AI tools for startups to help you accelerate decision-making and stay ahead of the competition.
9 best AI tools for startups
When starting a business, AI-powered tools help you optimize workflows, reduce costs and make insights-driven business decisions.
To choose the right solutions for your startup, consider your specific needs. Ask questions like:
Am I seeking a way to get early customers with more effective AI marketing?
Do I need an AI chatbot that answers questions and lightens the load for my customer service team?
AI tools exist for almost every task, and creating the perfect AI tech stack will help your business scale quickly.
Below, you’ll discover the nine top AI tools for startups, broken down by their primary use cases.
1. Pipedrive’s AI CRM: best revenue AI tool for startups
Pipedrive’s powerful AI-driven customer relationship management (CRM) streamlines sales and generates lasting customer relationships for your business.
Its easy-to-use interface with a visual sales pipeline enables you to manage deals from start to finish. You can organize contacts, schedule follow-ups and plan communications in one place.
The CRM’s drag-and-drop functionality simplifies moving deals through different stages. Built-in reporting dashboards provide clear insights into your startup’s sales performance.
Beyond this intuitive core functionality, a suite of AI-powered tools helps you work smarter and close deals more efficiently.
Pipedrive’s AI features take the guesswork out of sales – from personalized sales insights to automated content generation. Here’s how the AI platform gives your startup a competitive edge.
Get actionable strategy insights with AI Sales Assistant
Pipedrive’s AI Sales Assistant optimizes your sales processes with real-time recommendations based on data-driven insights.
It analyzes user activity, sales trends and pipeline performance to suggest the best actions to push deals forward.
For example, the AI business assistant might remind you to follow up with a high-priority lead or recommend adjusting deal pipeline stages to improve workflow.
The feature also offers sales tips based on each team member’s sales habits, helping to refine their approach and improve efficiency. It identifies bottlenecks and highlights opportunities to help you make informed decisions that drive business growth.
Download Your Guide to Sales Performance Measurement
Generate compelling emails with Pipedrive’s AI email writer
Pipedrive’s AI email writer creates well-structured emails quickly based on the context of your deal or contact.
Simply open the email composer, select “Write my email” and tell Pipedrive what you want to communicate. It can draft suggested follow-ups, introductions or proposals, reducing the time spent on manual writing.
Once content creation is complete, you can adjust the email’s tone and key details to ensure the message aligns with your communication style and sales goals.
With faster, more consistent communication, you’ll find it easier to engage with customers and leads.
Get tailored app recommendations with SmartApps
Pipedrive’s SmartApps feature and AI search engine help you find the right AI CRM integrations.
Instead of manually browsing through hundreds of Pipedrive Marketplace integrations, you’ll get user-friendly suggestions based on your workflow and existing systems.
With SmartApps, you can quickly connect the tools your startup requires most. It’s an efficient way to customize your simple CRM to ensure Pipedrive fits your changing business needs.
Use simple text prompts to generate AI reports
Pipedrive’s AI report generation tool enables you to create reports in seconds, using its straightforward interface to write your report request in your own words – no prior technical training or data analysis skills required.
You can also select one of 14 pre-written prompts available to generate reports with your key metrics. Once your report has been generated, you can continue talking to the AI chatbot to customize and improve your reports.
The AI report creator offers a great introduction to data insights for CRM newcomers, but it can also streamline the work of users already using the Insights feature to measure performance.
The takeaway: Pipedrive’s AI CRM features help startups, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs work smarter. They streamline sales, optimize deals and personalize communications so you can close the best deals.
2. ChatGPT: best for generating content and ideas
ChatGPT acts as a copywriting assistant, helping your business develop ideas and craft relevant content.
ChatGPT is a generative AI technology that uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand and create human-like text. It analyzes patterns in large datasets to break down language, recognize context and create coherent responses.
Many conversational AI writing tools, like Jasper and Grammarly, use OpenAI’s GPT to produce results.
Note: Conversational AI – a specific application of generative AI – understands and responds to your prompts using natural, human-like dialogue.
To use ChatGPT, enter a prompt like “Write a blog post about the benefits of remote work” or “Give me five social media captions for a new product launch”. The writing assistant will generate a response in seconds.
Once generated, tweak the tone to match your brand’s style. You can also use ChatGPT for sales or to support your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts by asking it to include specific keywords in your copy.
How startups can use ChatGPT:
Creating compelling content. Develop blog articles, marketing copy and social media posts to establish your brand presence.
Pitching to investors and partners. Refine investor decks, AI business plans and funding requests to showcase your startup’s potential.
Generating product and marketing strategies. Brainstorm product features, brand positioning strategies and marketing campaigns to stand out.
Improving communication. Create emails, customer support responses and internal documents with a consistent brand voice.
The takeaway: ChatGPT helps with content marketing and communication, freeing your team to focus on scaling your startup faster.
3. Perplexity AI: best for research and instant answers
Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search assistant that answers questions about market trends, competitors and business problems. It helps you get reliable information without manually sifting through multiple sites.
When you ask a question, Perplexity AI scans up-to-date web sources and summarizes valuable insights. It then provides citations so you can verify the information.
Here’s the output when asked, “What are the latest trends in SaaS pricing?”:
How startups can use Perplexity AI:
Validating market opportunities. Get AI reports on industry trends, your target audience and competitor strategies to refine your startup’s positioning.
Finding statistics and data. Pull relevant numbers, reports and case studies without manual searches to strengthen pitches and support business decisions.
Exploring new business ideas. Ask complex questions about markets, customer behaviors or product categories to uncover gaps and opportunities.
Ensuring accuracy. Fact-check claims, verify sources and back up your pitches and presentations with reliable data.
The takeaway: Perplexity AI allows startups to make confident decisions based on reliable insights from verifiable sources.
4. Canva with Magic Design: best for designing marketing materials
With Canva’s AI Magic Design feature, your startup can create digital marketing materials like social media graphics and pitch decks without design skills.
Magic Design creates graphics based on your input (either text descriptions or uploaded images). Enter an image generation prompt like “Create an Instagram post to market my CRM tool”, and it’ll provide a handful of AI-driven template suggestions.
You can continue to customize these templates until they meet your exact needs.
How startups can use Canva with Magic Design:
Creating social media graphics. Generate branded posts, ads and banners to build your online presence and attract sales prospects.
Designing sales decks and investor presentations. Craft slides that clearly show your startup’s value propositions and make a lasting impression.
Making flyers, posters and marketing materials. Easily generate print-ready designs for product launches, sales promotions or brand awareness campaigns.
Branding consistency across platforms. Apply your startup’s logo, colors and fonts to all designs so audiences can easily recognize your brand.
The takeaway: With Canva and Magic Design, startups can create marketing materials without advanced design skills.
5. Notion AI: best for knowledge management and documentation
Notion AI lets you create, manage and retrieve essential knowledge. The tool stores documents like meeting notes and startup business plans so you can keep track of key information.
Notion AI can also generate summaries, rewrite content and extract takeaways from notes and documents. For instance, you can ask it to summarize sales meetings or compile project management updates for quick insights.
How startups can use Notion AI:
Summarizing meeting notes and documents. Get actionable insights from discussions, investor meetings or market research reports and speed up decision-making.
Generating internal documentation. Create standard operating procedures (SOPs), project plans and knowledge bases to reduce onboarding time.
Writing and refining content. Improve clarity, format drafts and adjust the tone of important documents.
Organizing and retrieving information. Search and summarize key details to access critical data easily.
The takeaway: Notion AI helps startups organize internal knowledge to make it more accessible and actionable.
6. Runway ML: best for AI-powered video editing
Runway ML uses machine learning algorithms to automate video editing and speed up the creation process. It lets startups create video marketing content without going over budget.
Note: Machine learning is a cutting-edge AI technology that enables systems to learn from data analysis and improve over time. It uses predictive algorithms to identify patterns, make decisions and automate time-consuming tasks.
To use Runway ML, upload your media and select an AI tool (like inpainting, text-to-video creation or motion tracking). Enter your prompt and let the AI do the work.
Runway ML will edit or generate your footage according to your prompt. With additional prompts, you can alter the footage further as required.
How startups can use Runway ML:
Creating marketing videos and social media content. Quickly generate and edit digital assets to enhance brand awareness and audience engagement.
Automating tedious editing tasks. Use AI to remove backgrounds, replace objects and enhance visuals without hiring a video editor.
Generating AI-assisted animations and motion graphics. Experiment with unique animations to stand out in a crowded market.
The takeaway: Runway ML produces video content and handles editing so your team can focus on storytelling and selling.
7. Fireflies.ai: best for meeting transcription and summaries
Fireflies.ai keeps track of meetings and prevents crucial information from slipping through the cracks. It transcribes team meetings, summarizing your discussions and listing the main insights.
Fireflies.ai works with tools like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams (which also integrate with Pipedrive). Once you invite the AI assistant to the call, it’ll record, transcribe and highlight action items in real time.
After the meeting, you’ll have a searchable transcript that makes it easier to find the main points without replaying the call.
How startups can use Fireflies.ai:
Automating meeting notes and action items. Fireflies.ai captures your meetings and summarizes them without manual note-taking.
Searching and referencing past discussions. Find specific conversations or decisions instead of listening to lengthy recordings.
Improving team collaboration and accountability. Share meeting insights with your sales reps to align everyone on the next best action.
Streamlining customer calls and sales meetings. Review past sales conversations to track follow-ups and improve communication with clients.
The takeaway: Fireflies.ai helps startups spend less time note-taking and more time taking the next best actions.
8. Front: best for collaborative customer service
Front combines automation with team collaboration tools, enabling you to resolve customer inquiries fast. Unlike traditional ticketing systems, Front is like a shared inbox with AI features that prioritize messages and suggest replies.
As Front’s AI analyzes incoming messages and recommends responses based on past customer interactions, your team can work together to provide personalized support.
To streamline collaboration, Front integrates with CRM tools like Pipedrive and email and chat software like Slack.
How startups can use Front:
Automate responses to common customer inquiries. AI-powered suggestions let support teams answer faster with a small team.
Prioritize and route messages efficiently. Identify urgent requests and send them to the right team members.
Collaborate seamlessly on complex customer issues. Internal comments, shared inboxes and AI summaries align team members.
Analyze and improve customer interactions. AI-driven insights enable small businesses to track performance and enhance customer satisfaction.
The takeaway: Front helps customer support teams improve collaborative workflows and response times without hiring additional customer service agents.
9. JustCall: best for AI-powered sales and support calls
JustCall is a cloud-based phone system designed for sales and support agents. It uses AI to streamline customer interactions with workflow automation, conversation analytics and call routing.
AI features like speech analytics and automated transcriptions enable teams to respond faster and prioritize critical leads.
JustCall integrates with Pipedrive so you can manage sales calls and log all customer communications directly in your CRM.
How startups can use JustCall:
Route calls intelligently. AI reduces wait times by directing incoming calls to the right team member based on real-time factors like caller history and agent skills.
Analyze customer sentiment. AI-powered conversation intelligence detects sentiment to flag urgent calls, helping teams respond to unhappy customers before issues escalate.
Transcribe calls automatically. AI transcribes and summarizes calls automatically, so it’s easier to maintain accurate records for follow-ups.
Score calls and get coaching tips. JustCall’s AI tracks call success and suggests responses to enhance agent performance.
The takeaway: JustCall uses AI to cut wait times, provide call insights and enable more effective sales and support calls.
Final thoughts
AI tools offer a cost-effective way to scale your startup by automating repetitive tasks and providing data-driven insights to grow sustainably.
To unlock your business’s full potential, use an AI-powered CRM like Pipedrive. As the hub of your sales, customer support and marketing efforts, its all-in-one platform centralizes startup AI tools and streamlines workflows – giving you direct access to what you need, when you need it.
Try Pipedrive for free and discover how the power of AI can automate your startup’s growth strategy, keeping your team primed and ready to scale.
See how Pipedrive's AI focused CRM can help your startup grow.
