Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way businesses operate, unlocking new opportunities for growth and efficiency. From automating repetitive tasks to optimizing marketing strategies, AI is reshaping industries and driving innovation across the globe. In customer service, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are enhancing engagement and support, while predictive analytics is transforming supply chain management. As AI continues to evolve, the ways businesses use AI are becoming more diverse and impactful than ever before.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world in the most wonderful of ways. Just recently, Google’s co-scientist solved a complex superbug immunity problemOpens in a new window in only two days, which had taken microbiologists at Imperial College London a decade to reach the same conclusion. It’s not just Google using AI — businesses of all sizes are now beginning to realise the full potential of AI.
A prime example of this is Community Vision, which, in conjunction with Salesforce, used AI to automate and optimise scheduling and client management processes, allowing support workers to be more productive — and resulting in a 30% reduction in customer call volumes. As AI systems improve at mimicking human behaviour, automating repetitive tasks, and making more informed decisions, their potential becomes limitless.
This presents an excellent opportunity for companies to embrace digital transformation, enhance competitiveness, drive innovation, and deliver more value to customers. Let’s explore how businesses use AI and how you can, too.
1. Process automation to automate repetitive tasks
Basic automatic robots have been around for quite some time in the form of robotic process automation (RPA), which can consistently perform a single rule-based task, such as those found within production lines.
However, AI and machine learning have taken process automation further to the point that some companies now see them as indispensable tools for automating advanced processes that are otherwise susceptible to human error.
For instance, modern AI automation solutions can use ML algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse real-time business data to make savvy and autonomous decisions. This allows businesses to automate workflows and coordinate tasks independently, which frees up time for specialists to focus on tasks that maximise their expertise and improve organisational performance.
2. Content generation and marketing strategies
AI is mastering how to create on-brand marketing content that adapts to a company’s audience and values. At the top level, generative AI solutions powered by large language models (LLMs) can produce multi-modal content at scale, including text-based blogs, imagery and video material. While human oversight is still necessary to maintain quality, an AI tool can manage all of the heavy lifting and allows marketers to prioritise optimising their campaigns from the top down.
The beauty of generative AI models like this is that they aren’t just creating run-of-the-mill copy. Instead, modern enterprise AI software like Einstein AI can analyse customer data and campaign metrics in seconds and social media sentiment to make smarter decisions about the best approach to content creation.
This allows organisations to save time on at-scale digital advertising without losing sight of their target audience’s needs.
3. Supply chain optimisation to create more business value
Supply chain management is another area where AI is making hay whilst the sun is shining. Businesses can use artificial intelligence models to track inventory levels in real time to prevent their most popular products from going out of stock. Additionally, by analysing historical sales and marketing data, AI can forecast customer demand through predictive analytics, which helps companies adopt a more streamlined approach to ordering stock at different times of the year.
For companies that ship their products to businesses or consumers, AI can also optimise delivery routes by looking at traffic patterns and schedules. This can be very beneficial to those transporting medical samples and medicines or foods that have a limited shelf-life. Collectively, these benefits result in cost savings for businesses, which, in turn, can be passed on to customers through lower prices or improved services.
4. AI for customer service to drive engagement
Business AI has become widely adopted in customer service primarily because it helps organisations provide immediate and on-brand support to people and frees up more time for their employees to focus on other high-value tasks.
For instance, chatbots and powerful AI agents use large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP) to respond to customer queries and can provide on-brand customer support 24/7. These solutions can understand user intent in context and then produce an answer based on its custom training dataset.
Take Australia’s Urban Rest, for instance. The premium accommodation provider launched in Sydney in 2017 before scaling at pace into Auckland and the UK. This rapid growth was hugely exciting for them, and they successfully navigated it by deploying Agentforce, the agentic layer of Salesforce, to build a custom AI agent.
After unifying customer data under our customer relationship management (CRM) software, the agent was able to engage with guests 24/7 using the brand’s tone of voice and could even answer common questions, such as customer queries about Wi-Fi codes.
AI general troubleshooting enabled reps at Urban Rest to focus on providing personalised customer experiences, which led to a 30% return on investment within 12 months.
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Original article published on salesforce.com
