As a business owner, you’re probably wearing many different hats and juggling responsibilities. On any given day you could be your own web developer, accountant, or marketing department. The list goes on and on.
It begs the question: Could you (and your business) benefit from a little AI-powered assistance?
Now, we’re not talking about using AI exclusively to generate content, like social media posts and web copy. Not only are AI writing tools not the most trustworthy (or reliable), but there truly is no substitute for your own creativity and deep thinking.
Here are three areas where we see the biggest benefits of AI:
- Saving time: Automate time-consuming administrative tasks and free yourself up for more creative endeavours that move your business forward.
- Keeping customers satisfied: Well-trained AI agents and chatbots can help you respond to customer questions and concerns faster.
- Become a lean(er), mean(er) marketing machine: Get help with researching and targeting new sales leads and spend less time creating good content from scratch.
You wouldn’t be alone in exploring AI, either. Far from it! According to a recent GoDaddy study, two-thirds (or 61%) of Canadian entrepreneurs are using generative AI in some capacity.
Ah, but which AI tools are they using? There are tons to choose from, with more popping up seemingly by the hour. That’s why we’ve hand-selected 10 tools that can have a big impact on your business—without a massive learning curve or price.
1. Grammarly
Cost: Free or $12 USD/month for pro subscription
Nobody wants to wade through bad writing. Not even your friends. Spelling mistakes and grammatic dumpster fires only confuse and distract from what you have to offer.
Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that essentially helps you produce clear, mistake-free content. Think of it like a professional proofreader checking over your work, but without the deep sighs and judgement.
The free version of Grammarly works in the background, catching things like typos, misspellings and even confused words (like they’re vs. their).
2. Otter.ai
Cost: Free or $8.33 USD/month for pro version
Sure, there are a pile of notetaking and meeting transcription apps to pick from, but we believe that Otter.ai is top-of-the-heap. Why? Because—in the immortal words of Steve Jobs—it just works.
Otter integrates smoothly with your video conferencing platform of choice, takes notes, transcribes live audio and provides you with concise meeting summaries and action items. No frantic scribbling on random bits of paper required!
3. Buffer
Cost: Free or $5 USD/month for “essentials” subscription
You’ve got a bunch of social posts across multiple platforms for your business. So, why are you still manually managing it all?
Buffer is your handy AI social media manager that helps you create, organize and automatically schedule all your content. Buffer even provides analytics on your audience demographics, the most ideal times to post and reports on which content is getting the most engagement.
4. Ada
Cost: Tailored to your business needs
Canadian-made Ada goes beyond your basic chatbots and provides intelligent, AI customer service agents that can be continually coached and improved to deliver the best possible experiences for your customers.
And with Ada’s service agents handling voice chat, messaging and emails, you’ll be in a better position to support more customers without having to add more bodies to your team.
5. DALL E-3
Cost: $20 USD/month (for ChatGPT Pro subscription)
From the fine folks who brought you ChatGPT, comes DALL E-3—one of the best text-to-image generators out there.
With DALL E-3, you can create richly detailed, unique imagery with a few simple prompts. It’s especially useful if, for example, you need a little help with visualizing new creative concepts and don’t have a professional illustrator on-hand.
And because it’s powered and built with ChatGPT, DALL E-3 is capable of quite a lot more detail and nuance than your average AI image generator.
6. Jasper
Cost: $69 USD/per user/month
AI-powered writing tools (rightfully) get a lot of flack for not producing quality writing. Jasper aims to reverse all that by being one of the most robust and high-performing writing generators out there.
But first, a disclaimer: Don’t rely solely on A.I. writing tools like Jasper to create your marketing content. Rather, use them more as a virtual “marketing intern” to generate half-decent first drafts that you can pick up and polish later with your own human creativity.
That said, if you’re crunched for time and have tons of content to write, Jasper saves you from starting with a blank page every time.
Another interesting feature is that you can “teach” Jasper about your business through detailed prompts and by uploading assets like company facts and brand guides. The idea here is that the more you feed it, the more Jasper’s generated content will “sound” like it’s coming from you.
7. Perplexity
Cost: Free for standard plan, $20 USD/month for pro plan
When you’re doing deeper research and have questions, you need your AI assistant to spit facts, not best guesstimates.
Perplexity specializes in providing you with well-researched and detailed answers that are backed by numerous reliable sources. Rather than just providing citations, Perplexity will actually show you exactly where it pulled its answers – be it scholarly journals or recent news articles.
8. Shopify Magic
Cost: Free for all Shopify merchants
Selling your wares on Shopify’s platform? Shopify Magic helps with everything from generating snappy product descriptions and eye-catching imagery, to creating blog posts and marketing emails.
Even cooler: Shopify Magic can also act as a chatbot and provide personalized answers to customer questions within Shopify’s “inbox” messaging app.
9. Sanebox
Cost: $7 USD/month for basic plan, $12 USD/month for more features and two email accounts
What if you could reclaim three or four hours of time each week? That’s what Sanebox promises with its AI-powered email inbox management tool.
Among the coolest and most useful features? A daily summary of your most important unopened emails, a personal follow-up assistant and the “black hole” which automatically filters out and banishes annoying spammy senders from your inbox!
10. Kit
Cost: $0/month for basic plan, $33 USD/month for “Creator” plan
If a slick, well-crafted email gets ignored by its audience…did it ever exist?
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is an AI-powered marketing email platform that not only helps you quickly create gorgeous emails but also creates automated journeys. For example, new subscribers are greeted with a timed sequence of personalized welcome emails.
Kit also provides a pretty robust set of analytics like audience engagement and open rates, so you can know whether or not your dad joke-laden messaging is leading to clicks and conversions!
Find the right AI tool for your business
The whole AI landscape is evolving by leaps and bounds every day. There’s never been a better time to dive in, try out a few of these tools and see if there’s a logical fit with your business. You’ve got nothing to lose and only time to gain!
Are you a Canadian business also looking to make a website? Let’s get you started with registering your .CA domain.
A .CA domain declares your business is proudly Canadian
Kira is the Content and Channel Marketing Lead at CIRA. She focuses on content, digital marketing and channel strategies to help Canadian business owners make the right domain choice for their business website so they can find success online.
