Smart Ways AI Can Boost Business Productivity
AI is everywhere, from customer chatbots to summarising long documents and videos, the technology has a multitude of uses. But what are some of the ways you can use AI in your own business?
Time is precious when you’re running a business, but so much of it is spent on inefficient, time-consuming tasks. In fact, business owners typically waste 6.8 hours per week on low-value business activities. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) can change this by automating and streamlining your workflow, so you can get more done in a day.
AI has been found to successfully improve productivity by 14% on average, a research from Stanford and MIT reveals. By using AI tools to take care of routine tasks, improve business communications, and create and send invoices, you can boost productivity and dedicate more of your time to more important matters — namely, growing your business.
Automate Routine Tasks
Routine tasks such as document preparation and management can be automated with AI-powered document management systems. This is good news since employees typically waste 46% of the working day on manual, paper-intensive workflows, as well as over eleven hours weekly on time-consuming document management issues.
In particular, AI-powered document management systems can read and automatically categorizie documents for you. So, for example, if you have a whole load of resumes to look over, AI can scan them for key words or phrases and organize them, so you’re presented with the candidates most qualified for the job. This saves you bot time and mental energy.
Scheduling is another admin task AI can take over. In fact, AI tools were found to be competent at scheduling and task prioritization, and even “better than humans in many cases”, in a recent study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. You can simply ask a tool like ChatGPT to schedule your day (use a prompt like: “how can I organize my day to get the most done?”). You can also specify tasks you want to prioritize, your peak productivity hours, and what times you’ve scheduled calls or meetings.
Improve Business Communications
AI tools can also streamline and improve business communications. In fact, 28% of professional communicators currently use generative AI to create content faster, while 35% use it for idea generation and/or to do the legwork of content creation, a recent survey by the Conference Board found.
In particular, generative AI tools can write business emails designed to increase open rates and engagement. Not only can AI speed up the process of writing emails, but it can also analyze email content, structure, voice, and grammar in order to make improvements where necessary. In turn, this helps you save time, more easily build and maintain a positive brand image, and ultimately sets the foundation for strong client relationships.
Create And Send Invoices
AI can also automate the entire invoicing process from invoice creation and sending to even chasing up payments on your behalf. It therefore puts an end to the time-consuming and inefficient manual invoicing process that’s so often prone to errors.
As these errors (like missing or incorrect information) typically result in delayed payments and put strain on supplier relationships, AI can be an essential tool that keeps payments flowing and your overall business running smoothly. In particular, these tools can extract relevant information from documents like supplier details, total amounts, and itemized descriptions and use this to create and send error-free invoices.
Notably, AI can also track the status of payments and send reminders to recipients before the due day arrives. If they don’t pay on time, AI can also send polite and respectful overdue notices. Plus, after installing the program, you won’t have to worry about any of this. AI will take care of all late payments for you. But once several invoice reminders (around two to three) have been sent to the same recipient to no avail, you’ll then be informed as you will probably need to get involved at this point. Overall that’s far less work and oversight needed on your part.
Final Thoughts
AI tools can streamline and improve your workflow, so you can achieve more in less time. Whether you use this technology to automate routine tasks, improve business communications, or create and send invoices and payment reminders, AI tools have the power to boost business productivity and efficiency, as well as your bottom line.
Are you using AI in your workplace? Let us know how it’s improving your productivity (or if it isn’t!) in the comments below