You've heard all the hype about AI and how it's transforming businesses of all sizes. As an entrepreneur building a startup or small business, you know you need to leverage the latest technologies to compete and scale.
The good news is, you don't need a huge budget or team to start using AI tools that can streamline processes, boost productivity, and gain valuable insights. Here are the best AI tools every startup and small business needs to implement next year to save time, cut costs, and accelerate growth!
What are AI Tools for Business?
AI tools use artificial intelligence and machine learning to help businesses work smarter and faster. As an entrepreneur, AI can streamline many of your daily tasks so you can focus on growing your business.
There are AI tools for nearly every function. Chatbots on your website can handle simple customer service queries and scheduling appointments. AI-powered meeting assistants can take over the time-consuming task of reviewing meeting notes and drafting out action items for quick follow-ups.
Content creation tools generate blog posts, social media posts, and product descriptions in your own voice and style. All you do is provide a few sample pieces of content and the AI studies your style to continue creating custom content on your behalf.
AI tools are more affordable, accessible and advanced than ever, allowing even non-technical entrepreneurs to benefit. With AI handling mundane tasks, you can focus on growing your startup into the next success story.
The Importance of AI tools for Small Business
These days, AI and automation tools are essential for small businesses to gain a competitive advantage. Implementing AI solutions can help you work smarter and faster, reduce costs, and boost productivity.
- Save Time and Money: Using AI for writing the first drafts can make you life so much easier. Hypotenuse AI, for example, can generate human-like content in bulk at a fraction of the time human copywriters take.
- Gain Valuable Insights: AI tools leverage data to identify patterns and trends that humans might miss. AI data analytics services provide insights into how customers interact with your product or service so you can make data-driven decisions to optimize the customer experience.
- Reach More Customers: AI powers solutions like chatbots, voice assistants, and personalized marketing campaigns to engage potential customers in new ways (tip: follow a few simple mail merge steps to automate the latter, to make it less time-consuming). Chatbots, for instance, give you a 24/7 presence to connect with leads and the ability to have more meaningful conversations at scale.
- Enhance Productivity: Automation tools handle repetitive tasks so you and your team can focus on high-value work. Services like Zapier integrate your apps and workflows to automatically trigger actions like sending a thank you email after a sale or updating your CRM when a new lead submits a contact form.
- Stay Ahead of the Curve: AI is the future, and businesses of all sizes are realizing its potential. Integrating AI into your operations now will ensure you don't get left behind. The latest AI innovations can help boost productivity, create new opportunities, and give you a technological and strategic advantage over competitors.
While AI may seem complex, user-friendly AI tools and platforms put the power of artificial intelligence within reach of small businesses. With a little research, you can find affordable AI solutions tailored to your needs and budget.
17 AI Tools for Small Business
Here is a list of the best AI tools small teams cannot live without!
1. Hypotenuse: AI Content Creation & Management
Hypotenuse AI is a versatile content marketing tool that generates quality content at scale.
Trained on high-conversion marketing copy, Hypotenuse’s proprietary AI models can generate factually accurate and high-quality blog posts, product descriptions, advertising copy, landing page content, AI images, and more at unbelievable speeds.
Plus, Hypotenuse AI is connected to the internet, so it can find all the information you need from the web in no time.
Features
- Research with one click: With Content Detective, Hypotenuse's powerful research tool, you can quickly find relevant information and facts sourced directly from the web without leaving the platform.
- Write long-form content in minutes: Hypotenuse's blog article workflow lets you write a 1,500+ word blog in 3 simple steps. Choose from a list of tones or suggest your own tone to generate content in the style that works for you.
- Instruct AI to write for you: Provide specific instructions and generate quality content tailored to your needs using Commands and Compose. This level of control allows you to create high-quality, customized content efficiently.
- Rank higher with SEO optimization: Hypotenuse automatically optimizes your content by helping you incorporate your SEO keywords seamlessly. This ensures that your content has a better chance of ranking higher in search engine results and reaching a wider audience.
- Generate content in bulk: Effortlessly create content at scale with Hypotenuse's bulk generation feature. Save time by generating multiple product descriptions, meta descriptions, or social media captions in one go.
- Extract insights from PDF: Upload your PDFs to HypoChat and get a quick summary of your document instantly. Query it for specific data and make use of its web connection to find relevant information from online sources easily.
- Tone Adjustment: Customize the tone and style of the generated copy to align with your brand voice and target audience.
Pricing
Hypotenuse AI offers a 7-day free trial for all first-time users. Subscription plans start from $59/month for up to 5 user seats plus access to a suite of AI-powered tools including image generation and HypoChat.
If you’re looking to build custom templates or AI models trained on your company’s brand voice, you should consider their Enterprise plan.
Why Teams Need This
As an AI copywriting assistant, Hypotenuse AI is capable of producing high-quality content, saving teams countless hours that would otherwise be spent brainstorming, writing, and editing. The AI can generate product descriptions, ad copy, blog posts, and more, all while maintaining the brand's voice and style. This can be particularly useful for startups with limited resources or teams that lack dedicated copywriters. Additionally, Hypotenuse AI can offer content suggestions and ideas, making the creative process more efficient — just like having an in-house editor!
Limitation
Hypotenuse AI has a limitation when it comes to generating content with exact word counts, particularly for templates that require a specific number of words. As a predictive AI model, Hypotenuse AI is designed to generate content within a specific word range, which may not always match the precise needs of some businesses.
Fortunately, Hypotenuse AI's Enterprise plan offers businesses the opportunity for further customization. This means that if a business has specific word count requirements, they can collaborate with the Hypotenuse AI team to explore additional options and adjust the content generation process accordingly for a more tailored plan.
Our Take
Never worry about writer's block again. Hypotenuse AI's simple and intuitive user interface means that business owners and marketers need minimal technical expertise to start using the platform. You can specify the type of content needed, the target keyword phrases, and any brand guidelines, and the AI takes care of producing multiple high-quality options within minutes. The AI-generated content can then be reviewed, edited as needed, and quickly published.
Overall, Hypotenuse AI's enhanced capabilities allow you to scale their content production while ensuring that all generated material is optimized for search engines and conversion — helping boost your online visibility, lead generation, and sales.
2. GitHub Copilot: AI Coding Assistant
GitHub Copilot: AI Coding Assistant
As a developer, you know how tedious and time-consuming writing test cases, sample data, and other mundane tasks can be. GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer that can assist you with these chores so you can focus on the more creative parts of building software.
Copilot provides intelligent coding suggestions based on billions of lines of code in GitHub repositories. It’s available as a Visual Studio Code extension, suggesting snippets and entire functions as you type. The more you use Copilot, the more it learns your style and preferences, providing increasingly tailored recommendations.
Features
- Automated test case and sample data generation: GitHub Copilot can generate test cases and sample data with just a single prompt, saving developers time and effort in creating these essential components for software development.
- Intelligent code suggestions: Copilot provides intelligent coding suggestions that are tailored to the developer's style and preferences. It learns from the developer's usage patterns, offering increasingly accurate recommendations.
- Alternative approaches and implementations: Copilot goes beyond basic code suggestions by suggesting alternative approaches or implementations for a function. This can help developers explore different solutions and choose the most efficient one for their project.
- Autocompletion of complex functions: Writing lengthy or complex functions can be time-consuming and prone to errors. With Copilot, developers can rely on autocompletion to speed up the coding process and ensure accurate implementation of complex logic.
- Bug detection and style issue fixes: Copilot not only assists in writing code but also helps in identifying bugs and style issues. It can detect common coding mistakes or violations of coding conventions and propose fixes, improving overall code quality.
Pricing
Copilot for business starts at $19/month per user which includes corporate proxy support and Copilot Chat in beta. Take advantage of their free trial to figure out if Copilot is necessary for your business.
Why Teams Need This
Copilot significantly enhances the coding process by providing suggestions for code completion, thereby reducing the time and effort required to write code. It's especially useful for startups and small teams with limited resources, as it can help accelerate development timelines, allowing you to bring your products or services to market more quickly. GitHub Copilot can also help less experienced developers learn new coding languages and techniques by suggesting best practices.
Limitation
One limitation of GitHub Copilot for small businesses is its reliance on previous code repositories. While the AI-powered coding assistant draws suggestions from billions of lines of code on GitHub, it may not have access to a wide range of smaller businesses' proprietary codebases. This can result in limited suggestions and potentially less accurate recommendations for specific business needs.
Our Take
While Copilot won’t write an entire program for you, it excels at the repetitive parts of coding, freeing you up to think strategically about the overall architecture and user experience. For startups and small businesses looking to maximize their engineering resources, GitHub Copilot is an AI tool that can make a real difference in developer productivity and code quality.
3. Spline AI: 3D Design with AI
Spline AI is a free 3D design tool that lets you create 3D models, animations, and textures with the help of AI. Instead of spending hours tweaking vertices and polygons, Spline AI generates 3D shapes from simple text prompts. Just describe what you want to make, and Spline AI will interpret your words into a 3D model.
Features
- AI-Powered Design: Spline AI utilizes the power of artificial intelligence to enable users to generate 3D objects and scenes by simply describing their vision through AI prompts. This feature allows for intuitive and efficient design creation.
- AI Textures: Users can create seamless textures for objects using text prompts. This AI-powered feature simplifies the process of designing and texturing objects, enhancing the visual quality of 3D designs.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Spline AI offers real-time collaboration capabilities, allowing users to collaborate with teammates on design projects. This feature promotes teamwork, enhances design iterations, and facilitates efficient communication among team members.
Pricing
Spline AI offers a free Basic plan for up to 2 users and 1 shared project. If you're a heavy user, consider opting for their Super Team plan at $9/month per user.
Why Teams Need This
Spline AI's features include AI-based task management, intelligent forecasting, and predictive analytics, which can help in identifying bottlenecks and potential issues before they become problems. Its collaborative features also foster better team communication and coordination. By using Spline AI, teams can streamline their workflow, make data-informed decisions, and increase their overall productivity and efficiency.
Limitation
As with many AI-powered design tools, the main limitation is their contextual understanding. AI models may sometimes struggle to fully grasp the context or intent behind user prompts, which can result in inaccuracies or misinterpretations in the generated designs. Designers may need to intervene, provide clarifications, or make manual adjustments to align the AI-generated designs with their intended vision.
Our Take
Overall, with its user-friendly interface and powerful AI features, Spline AI is a perfect 3D design tool for startups, small businesses, and individuals alike. It empowers you to unleash your creativity and bring your product ideas to life with ease.
4. Elephas: AI Writing Assistant for Mac
Elephas is a personal AI writing assistant for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The perfect AI tool for knowledge workers, content creators, and academics alike. Elephas offers nifty writing and editing features to help you create impactful content and even reply to emails smartly.
Elephas also a great second brain app if you're into personal knowledge management. It integrates with your favorite note-taking and knowledge management app, so that you can bring all your data into a "Super Brain" and start chatting with it. Not just PDF files, Elephas allows you to add any type of file to your brain and chat with it, which is very powerful. And the best part is that you can even share your super brain with your team members.
Features
- Viral Mode: It guides users in creating viral content for broader audience engagement. Mostly suited for social media.
- Continue Writing: This feature lets you start a sentence with a few words and continue the content from where you left off.
- Persuasive Mode: Elephas helps you rewrite your paragraphs into compelling, impactful pieces of content with its Persuasive mode.
- Zinserr Mode: Based on the writings of author William Zinserr, this mode rewrites your paragraph for clarity and crispness. Removing unnecessary words and confusing phrases.
- Friendly Mode: This feature helps you rewrite your paragraph in a more friendly tone, to make it sound casual and direct.
- Professional Mode: This rewrite mode, rephrases your content for more formal settings like official emails and memos.
- Super Brain consolidates information seamlessly from PDFs, web pages, and platforms like Notion and Obsidian for a centralized knowledge hub. It's like your very own personal GPT on your Mac.
- Super chat helps you bring all the powers of ChatGPT right inside your Mac, so you can access AI natively, without having to switch to a browser.
Pricing
Elephas offers 3 affordable AI assistant plans. Their standard plan starts at $4.99/month. They also offer lifetime licenses, all with unlimited usage and the option to bring your own API key.
Why Teams Need This
Elephas offers an easy collaboration of your knowledge within the Super Brain feature. It's like you create your own personal GPT with your knowledge, and then share it with your colleagues and teammates. This means they get access to all your knowledge, they can chat with it, brainstorm with it, and even create content with it. While you still maintain the ownership of the brain, to modify its content and control who gets access to it.
Limitation
Elephas is a powerful app for all knowledge workers and content creators. But it is only available on the Apple ecosystem. So if you don't own a Mac, then you might not be able to use its most powerful features and not benefit from the tool.
Our Take
Elephas provides incredible value and gets you the most bang for your buck in terms of pure utility. Especially its super brain features are game-changing, something that every startup or small business can benefit from. So if you and your team are Mac users, then you should definitely give Elephas a shot.
5. Descript: AI Audio & Video Editor
Descript is an AI-powered audio and video editor perfect for startups and small businesses. This intuitive tool makes editing a breeze, whether you’re creating social media clips, online courses, podcasts, or marketing videos.
Descript is designed to simplify the process of editing and collaborating on multimedia content. With Descript, you can transcribe, edit, and mix audio and video recordings in an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
Features
- Transcription: Descript utilizes advanced speech-to-text technology to automatically transcribe audio and video files. This feature saves you time by converting spoken words into text, making it easy to edit and work with the content.
- Voice Generation: Descript’s AI can mimic your voice and generate speech to sync with your content. Use it to correct any issues in your audio or generate an entirely new voiceover.
- Text-based Editing: Descript's unique text-based editing approach allows you to edit audio and video files by manipulating the transcribed text. You can edit the text directly, and the changes will be reflected in the corresponding audio or video, making it simple to rearrange, cut, delete, or modify your content.
- Multitrack Editing: Descript enables you to edit multiple audio or video tracks simultaneously, similar to how you would work with layers in image editing software. This feature allows you to mix and arrange different elements, such as music, voiceovers, or sound effects, effortlessly.
- Collaboration and Version Control: Descript offers collaboration features, allowing multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously. It also includes version control capabilities, enabling you to track changes, revert to previous versions, and collaborate more efficiently with your team.
- Publishing and Sharing: Descript provides various options for publishing and sharing your edited content. You can export projects as audio or video files, publish directly to podcasting platforms, or share your work via links for easy collaboration and review.
Pricing
At only $15/month per user, Descript's Creator plan offers incredible value for small teams just starting out. They also have a Free plan that allows users to create unlimited projects up to 1hr/month.
Why Teams Need This
Descript offers a unique approach to editing, where edits can be made directly in the transcript, saving time and simplifying the process. This feature is particularly beneficial for teams that produce podcasts, webinars, or other digital content. The tool also provides automatic transcription, making it easy to convert audio and video content into written form for further use or analysis. Moreover, Descript's collaboration capabilities allow team members to work together efficiently, share comments, and provide feedback in real time.
Limitation
Descript has a monthly transcription limit of 30 hours per user on the Pro plan. While this limitation helps manage demand and ensure a fast turnaround for everyone, small businesses with extensive transcription needs may need to consider this limitation when evaluating Descript.
Our Take
Descript is an affordable, user-friendly tool to help you create professional social media clips, explainer videos, online courses, and other digital content. Whether you're a solopreneur, small team, or startup, Descript has the AI-powered features to take your video and audio content to the next level.
6. ClickUp: AI Cloud-Based Project Management Software
ClickUp is a project management and collaboration tool designed to help teams streamline their work and increase productivity. With automated features powered by artificial intelligence, ClickUp can predict task requirements, improve decision making, and optimize how teams allocate resources.
ClickUp serves as a central hub where teams can organize tasks, communicate, and track progress. They offer a range of features and functionalities to support project management across various industries.
Features
- Task Management: ClickUp allows users to create and assign tasks, set due dates, and establish priorities. It provides customizable task views, such as lists, boards, and timelines, to cater to different project management preferences.
- Collaboration: ClickUp enables team collaboration by allowing users to comment, tag team members, and share files within tasks. Real-time collaboration features enhance communication and facilitate seamless teamwork.
- Project Organization: ClickUp provides the flexibility to organize projects and tasks in a structured manner. Users can create hierarchies, such as Spaces, Folders, and Lists, to categorize and manage different projects or workstreams.
- Workflow Automation: ClickUp offers automation capabilities to reduce manual work and improve efficiency. Users can automate repetitive tasks, create custom workflows, and set up notifications and reminders to stay on top of deadlines.
- Integrations: ClickUp integrates with various third-party tools and services, allowing users to connect their favorite apps and streamline their workflows. Integration options include popular tools like Google Drive, Slack, Zoom, and more.
- Reporting and Analytics: ClickUp provides reporting and analytics features to track project progress, monitor team performance, and gain insights into productivity and workload distribution.
- Customization: ClickUp offers a high degree of customization, allowing users to tailor the tool to their specific needs. This includes customizable fields, task templates, and views to match different project requirements.
Pricing
ClickUp offers a Free Forever plan that provides a solid cost-free option for unlimited projects and users, although with limited features. For small teams that are just starting out, the Unlimited plan provides great value at $7/month per user with more advanced team features.
Why Teams Need This
ClickUp offers a range of collaboration tools, enabling real-time communication, file sharing, and feedback, thus fostering a more cohesive and efficient team environment. Additionally, its robust reporting and analytics capabilities provide valuable insights into project status and team performance, aiding in informed decision-making. By centralizing project management, enhancing collaboration, and providing actionable insights, ClickUp is a powerful tool for startups and small teams looking to optimize their operations and drive growth.
Limitation
ClickUp is a robust and feature-rich tool, which can result in a learning curve for new users. The extensive functionality and customization options may require some time and effort to fully understand and utilize effectively. While ClickUp provides resources such as tutorials and documentation to assist users, some individuals or teams may require additional training or support to maximize their use of the platform.
Our Take
Overall, ClickUp is a helpful project management tool that provides teams with a comprehensive solution for efficient project management, task tracking, and collaboration.
7. Otter.ai: AI Transcription Tool
Otter.ai is an AI-powered transcription and voice recording tool that provides automated meeting notes to help you stay on top of discussions and key takeaways. It has gained attention for its ability to generate accurate and real-time transcriptions of audio and video recordings
Features
- Real-Time Transcription: One of the standout features of Otter.ai is its ability to provide real-time transcription during live events or meetings. It can capture and display the spoken words as text in near real-time, allowing participants to follow along and refer to the transcriptions as needed. This can be beneficial for note-taking, accessibility, and reference purposes.
- Collaboration and Sharing: Otter.ai enables users to collaborate and share transcriptions with others. Multiple users can access, edit, and contribute to the same transcription simultaneously, making it a useful tool for team collaboration. Users can also export transcriptions in various formats, such as text files or synced audio and text files.
- Search and Organization: Otter.ai provides powerful search functionality within transcriptions, making it easy to locate specific keywords or phrases within recorded content. Additionally, it allows users to organize transcriptions using tags, folders, and other organizational tools, making it convenient to manage and retrieve transcriptions as needed.
- Integration with Other Tools: Otter.ai integrates with popular productivity tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and others, allowing users to automatically import recordings for transcription or directly access transcriptions within these platforms.
Pricing
For individuals and small teams who require more minutes and features, Otter.ai offers a Pro plan priced at $16.99/month per user. There is also a free Basic plan for you to try out the features before deciding on a plan.
Why Teams Need This
Otter.ai allows for easy collaboration, as team members can highlight, comment, and share specific parts of the transcript, enabling efficient collaboration and knowledge sharing. Otter.ai's search functionality makes it effortless to find specific information within the transcriptions, saving time and improving productivity. By providing accurate transcriptions, facilitating collaboration, and enhancing information retrieval, Otter.ai helps small businesses streamline communication, improve documentation, and boost overall efficiency.
Limitation
Some advanced features, such as custom vocabulary, exporting to alternative formats (e.g., PDF), and premium support, may be available only with certain plans. These features can enhance the functionality and customization options within Otter.ai, so take some time to consider which plan would suit your needs better.
Our Take
For keeping teams in sync and ensuring nothing slips through the cracks, Otter.ai is an AI tool that provides incredible value. The automated meeting notes and real-time collaboration features make it easy to stay on the same page with teammates and track key takeaways from any discussion.
8. Pictory: AI Videos & Voices
Pictory is an AI tool for creating engaging videos and adding professional voiceovers from long-form content. It offers over 3 million video clips, images, and 15k music tracks to choose from. The voiceover library includes 60 AI voices from Amazon Polly and Google WaveNet.
- Text-based Video Editing: Pictory's powerful AI allows you to create and edit professional-quality videos using text. You can add text to videos using audio, edit captions, and even add transcriptions using automated suggestions.
- Automatic Summarization: Pictory's AI can automatically summarize long videos, making it easier for viewers to grasp the key points. This feature saves time and helps boost engagement by providing concise and impactful clips.
- Social Media Integration: Pictory integrates with Hootsuite, a social media management platform, allowing you to schedule automatic posting of your videos on various social channels.
- Customizable Branding: With Pictory, you can customize your videos to align with your brand identity. It offers features like customizable branding, drag-and-drop functionality, and a content library to ensure your videos reflect your unique style.
- Easy-to-Use Interface: Pictory's user-friendly interface makes video editing accessible to users with varying technical skills. You can create and edit videos without the need to download any software.
Pricing
For small businesses, Pictory's services may be a little steep. Their Premium plan starts at $47/month for 1 user seat, with a more basic Standard plan at $23/month. For serious work in teams, you can consider their Teams plan at $119/month for 3 users.
Why Teams Need This
With Pictory, teams can easily track tasks, set priorities, and monitor progress, ensuring that projects stay on track and deadlines are met. The tool provides a centralized platform for team communication, file sharing, and feedback, promoting efficient collaboration and reducing miscommunication. Pictory also offers customizable project templates and integrations with popular productivity tools, making it adaptable to the unique needs of small teams.
Limitation
Pictory's AI-based summarization may not always capture the nuances or context of the original content perfectly. While it provides a convenient way to condense lengthy content, there may be instances where human intervention or further editing is required to ensure accuracy and clarity in the final video.
Our Take
Overall, by leveraging Pictory's features, small teams can streamline their content creation process, save time and resources, enhance collaboration, and create engaging videos that align with their brand.
9. Mem.ai: AI Note-taking
Mem.ai is an AI-powered note-taking tool designed to help capture your thoughts quickly and keep them organized. It acts as a personal knowledge base and assists in improving productivity and collaboration.
Features
- Note Organization: Mem.ai allows users to create and organize multiple notes in separate notebooks, providing a structured approach to managing information.
- Lightweight Task Management: The tool includes a task management feature that allows users to track and prioritize their tasks alongside their notes, helping to streamline workflows.
- Collaboration and Sharing: Mem.ai enables users to share their notes with others, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing within teams.
- Multimedia Support: Users can easily enhance their notes by dragging and dropping images, videos, and documents into them, making it a versatile tool for various content types.
- Cloud-Based Sync: Mem.ai offers cloud-based synchronization, ensuring that all notes and changes are updated and accessible across multiple devices.
- Intelligent Search: With advanced search capabilities, Mem.ai enables users to quickly locate specific information within their knowledge base, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
- Context-Aware AI Assistance: Mem.ai leverages AI to provide contextual insights and assistance, surfacing related information and helping users discover connections and patterns within their knowledge base.
Pricing
Mem.ai offers a free plan for individuals who want a simple and lightweight way to stay organized, which includes unlimited notes and collections. For more advanced features and team collaboration, the Mem X plan starts at $10/month, while the Teams plan starts at $15/month.
Why Teams Need This
With Mem.ai, small teams can easily collaborate and share knowledge, ensuring that critical information is accessible to everyone. It offers features like real-time syncing, powerful search capabilities, and integrations with popular tools, making it easy to capture and retrieve information from anywhere. By centralizing knowledge and streamlining information sharing, Mem.ai enhances team productivity, improves collaboration, and reduces the chances of valuable insights being lost or forgotten.
Limitation
Like many AI tools, Mem.ai's AI-powered writing and editing feature, known as Mem X, can sometimes generate plausible-sounding but incorrect or generalized information. It's important to review and verify the generated content for accuracy.
Our Take
Mem.ai aims to be an AI-powered workspace that adapts to you. For startups and small businesses looking to work smarter with AI, Mem.ai is a helpful tool that grows with you and helps overcome information overload.
10. SaneBox: AI Email Management
SaneBox uses artificial intelligence to declutter your inbox and make email management easier. It analyzes your past email behavior to determine what's most important to you without actually reading your messages.
SaneBox uses intelligent algorithms to analyze and sort incoming emails, ensuring that the most critical messages are highlighted while less important ones are organized or filtered. Over time, it gets smarter and better at predicting what you want to see right away.
Features
- Email Filtering: SaneBox automatically filters incoming emails based on their relevance and importance. It identifies and separates important messages from less important ones, making it easier for users to focus on essential communications.
- Inbox Cleanup: SaneBox can analyze your inbox and identify emails that are not urgent or relevant. It moves these emails to a separate folder called the SaneLater folder, keeping your main inbox clutter-free and reducing distractions.
- Priority Inbox: SaneBox creates a separate folder called the SaneBox folder, where it places important emails that need your attention. This helps ensure that critical messages are easily accessible and not buried in a crowded inbox.
- Snooze Emails: With SaneBox, you can snooze certain emails and have them reappear in your inbox at a later, more convenient time. This feature allows you to temporarily remove emails from your immediate view, helping you focus on the most pressing tasks.
- Follow-Up Reminders: SaneBox can remind you to follow up on emails that have not received a response within a specified period. This feature helps prevent important messages from slipping through the cracks and ensures timely action.
- SaneBlackHole: SaneBox allows you to unsubscribe from unwanted or spam emails effortlessly. By moving an email to the SaneBlackHole folder, you can ensure that future emails from that sender will be automatically filtered out.
Pricing
For small teams, SaneBox offers business plans with admin controls, shared folders, and productivity analytics to gain insights into how people are managing their inboxes.
Why Teams Need This
SaneBox automates email organization and prioritization, allowing team members to efficiently manage their inboxes and focus on important tasks. By reducing email overload and filtering out low-priority messages, SaneBox helps improve productivity and collaboration within the team. With features like reminders and follow-ups, it ensures that important emails are not overlooked, deadlines are met, and communication gaps are minimized. Additionally, SaneBox offers cost-effective plans tailored for small teams, making it an affordable and valuable email management solution.
Limitation
SaneBox integrates with various email services, such as Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, but its functionality may vary depending on the specific email platform you use. Also, if you already have custom email filters or rules set up, SaneBox may interact with them in unexpected ways. It's important to review and adjust your existing filters to ensure they work seamlessly with SaneBox's sorting and prioritization features.
Our Take
Overall, SaneBox is an innovative AI-powered email management tool that reduces clutter and frees up mental space so you can be more focused and productive. With an AI assistant handling tedious email tasks, you and your team can focus on the high-priority work that really drives your business forward.
11. Visme: AI Presentation Maker
Visme's AI Presentation Maker is a tool that provides infinite creative prompts, allowing you to generate your presentation with a library of royalty-free photos, videos, & graphics.
Visme's AI presentation tool is not only free but also easy to use and powerful. This means you can create stunning presentations on the fly without spending hours perfecting each pixel or coordinating with your design team in real time.
Features
- AI-Powered Design: Visme leverages artificial intelligence in-house to enhance your results for images of various styles and types, making design creation intuitive and efficient.
- Graphics in Various Styles: Choose from multiple output styles such as photos, paintings, pencil drawings, 3D graphics, icons, abstract art, and more.
- Text Generation: This tool can generate graphics for use in images, social media posts, and various types of content.
- Multiple Sharing & Download Options: Share your AI-generated presentations however you want. Add them to existing projects, share them on social media, or download them as a PDF, PNG, JPG, or HTML code. You can also share your AI creations in private projects with a password entry.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Visme offers real-time collaboration capabilities, allowing users to collaborate with teammates on design projects along with the ability to use other AI-powered editing tools.
Pricing
Visme offers a free account, Starter plans for $12.25/month, Pro plans for $24.75/month, and Enterprise plans are available.
Why Teams Need This
Visme is more than an AI Presentation Maker; it is an all-in-one tool for content authoring and design. Equipped with content and project management features such as workflows to assign tasks, add comments, set deadlines, and work simultaneously. Access a library of stock images, icons, and professionally designed templates along with beginner-friendly design tools. Visme provides a myriad of AI-powered tools, including an AI-powered brand wizard, AI Touch Up tools, and an AI writer as well.
Limitation
The primary limitation of Visme AI, like any AI-powered tool, is the contextual understanding of prompts. The more detailed the prompt, the better the results; less detail may lead to less satisfying outcomes. Tailor your prompts with descriptive terms for style, mood, and ambiance. Add designer and artist names for the AI to use as inspiration. For high-quality results, use words like 4K, high quality, and high definition.
Our Take
Overall, Visme's AI Image Presentation boasts a user-friendly interface and intuitive AI features. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their AI content creation with graphics, images, or text, it is well-suited for content creators, startups, and enterprise companies alike.
By using Visme, you empower your team to improve and streamline their workflow, reduce the content creation process, and increase overall productivity.
12. Fireflies.ai: AI Meeting Transcription & Note-taking
Fireflies.ai is an AI tool that automatically records and transcribes your meetings for you.
Once a meeting is concluded, Fireflies.ai provides a searchable transcript and allows you to tag important points or tasks discussed in the meeting. This makes it easier to revisit key decisions or action items without having to manually sift through the entire meeting's recording.
Fireflies.ai offers 90%+ accuracy for its live transcription and summarization. You can also upload audio files of meetings that weren't recorded live and Fireflies.ai will transcribe them.
Features
- Automated Meeting Transcription: Fireflies.ai can automatically record and transcribe meetings in real-time, converting spoken words into written text.
- Meeting Summaries: The platform can generate summaries of meetings, highlighting key points and action items.
- Searchable Transcripts: Users can search within transcriptions for specific keywords or phrases, making it quick and easy to refer back to important points.
- Task Tracking: Fireflies.ai can identify and track tasks discussed during meetings, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
- Integration: The platform integrates with numerous popular meeting platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, as well as project management tools like Asana and Trello. It also integrates with calendars for seamless scheduling.
- Sharing & Collaboration: Transcripts and notes can be shared with team members, fostering collaboration and transparency.
- Speech-to-Text Conversion: Fireflies.ai can convert any audio file into text, providing a written record of meetings, interviews, webinars, and more.
- AI-Powered Analysis: The platform uses machine learning to analyze meeting data and provide insights, helping teams understand their communication patterns and improve efficiency.
Pricing
For small teams, we recommend the Pro plan at $18/month per user which includes unlimited transcription credits and 8,000 mins of storage per user seat. With this plan, you will also gain access to their smart apps and AI summary features to speed up your work.
There is also a Free plan with limited features for anyone who wants to try it out first.
Why Teams Need This
For startups and small businesses, time is precious. Fireflies.ai eliminates the need to manually take notes during meetings or re-listen to recordings to identify key takeaways. With Fireflies.ai, you'll have an automatically generated record of your meeting that's optimized for quick review and searching. You can stay focused on the conversation instead of worrying about capturing every detail.
Limitation
One of the main limitations is that its accuracy in transcription can be affected by factors such as poor audio quality, heavy accents, or overlapping conversations, which might result in some inaccuracies in the transcriptions.
Another potential limitation is related to privacy and security. As Fireflies.ai records and transcribes meetings, sensitive information could potentially be exposed if not properly managed. While the company asserts a strong commitment to privacy and data security, users must still be cautious and aware of the data they are sharing.
Our Take
Never again will you scramble to recall what was agreed upon or who was assigned which tasks. With Fireflies.ai, you'll have a perfect record of every meeting to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. For high-growth startups and small businesses, that level of efficiency and productivity can make a big difference.
13. Reclaim AI: Smart AI Scheduling for Teams
With Reclaim AI, you can optimize team scheduling and free up more time for productivity. Reclaim's smart scheduling tools use AI to find the best times for meetings based on everyone's calendars and preferences.
By automating the hassle of scheduling, Reclaim gives teams more time to focus on meaningful work. The AI considers each person's working hours, time off, and personal calendar events to suggest times that minimize disruption. Teams can get more done and individuals have a better work-life balance when they're not bogged down with scheduling overhead.
Features
- Habit Scheduling: Reclaim AI can block out time in your calendar for regular tasks or habits, like exercise or focused work time.
- Task Scheduling: You can input tasks directly into Reclaim AI, and it'll find time in your schedule to get them done. It can adjust these blocks based on your preferences and the priority of the task.
- Calendar Sync: Reclaim AI syncs with your existing calendars, pulling in all of your events and tasks to create a comprehensive view of your schedule.
- Intelligent Rescheduling: If new events pop up, Reclaim AI can automatically reschedule your task and habit blocks to accommodate them.
- Privacy Control: While Reclaim AI helps manage your schedule, it also ensures your privacy. You can control how much detail others can see about your events.
- Flexible Behavior: You can adjust the flexibility of your tasks and habits. If you have a task that needs to be done at a specific time, you can make it less flexible so it won't get moved around.
- Compatibility: Reclaim AI integrates with popular calendar apps like Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook, making it easy to start using without changing your existing workflow.
Pricing
Reclaim integrates with tools you already use like Google Calendar, Office 365, and Slack. Pricing starts at $10 per month for small teams. They offer a 14-day free trial so you can see how much time Reclaim can save before committing.
Why Teams Need This
Reclaim AI can help streamline workflows by automatically scheduling and prioritizing tasks, ensuring no crucial task is overlooked. Its intelligent rescheduling feature accommodates for sudden changes, maintaining productivity without causing disruption. Moreover, the habit scheduling feature can promote a healthy work-life balance within the team, which is essential for maintaining morale and motivation.
Limitation
Despite its user-friendly design, some users may take time to adapt to the system and understand how to use it to its full potential. Some users have also found it challenging to fully utilize the product in larger settings, which might indicate its effectiveness could be dependent on team size.
Our Take
For startups and small businesses looking to scale efficiency, Reclaim is an AI-powered productivity partner that aligns with your priorities, both professional and personal, to help you stay productive without sacrificing your personal time or wellbeing.
14. Zapier: AI Workflow Automation
Zapier is an AI-powered workflow automation tool that connects the apps you use every day. Zapier’s automation platform lets you set up automated workflows between apps, called Zaps. You can connect thousands of apps like Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, and many more.
The best part is, you don’t need to learn any code to use Zapier. Their simple drag-and-drop builder lets you easily create automations between the apps you use every day.
Features
- Multi-Step Zaps: While a basic Zap consists of one trigger and one action, Multi-Step Zaps allow for more complex workflows with multiple actions following a single trigger.
- Built-In Apps: Zapier comes with several built-in apps like Code by Zapier, Email by Zapier, and Webhooks by Zapier, which provide additional flexibility and functionality.
- Filtering: This feature allows you to set conditions for when a Zap should run, giving you more control over your automation.
- Formatting: Zapier includes built-in data formatting tools that can help you manipulate and use your data more effectively within your Zaps.
- Scheduling: With Zapier, you can schedule actions to run at specific times, making it easier to plan and manage your workflows.
- Search Actions: Zapier can search for existing data in your apps, allowing you to find and use this data in other parts of your workflows.
Pricing
Zapier offers a Free Forever plan for personal use. For small teams just starting out, you can consider the Starter plan for 1 user at $29.99/month.
Why Teams Need This
Zapier can be a game-changer for small teams due to its ability to automate and streamline repetitive tasks, saving valuable time and resources. By integrating the various web applications a team uses, it can create seamless workflows that eliminate the need for manual data entry or toggling between apps. Whether it's syncing data between different platforms, setting up automated responses, or scheduling tasks, Zapier allows small teams to focus more on strategic, creative tasks and less on administrative chores.
Limitation
While Zapier offers numerous benefits, a key limitation for small teams could be the cost. Zapier's free plan is quite limited, and to unlock more tasks, multi-step Zaps, and premium apps, teams need to opt for a paid plan. For small teams or startups operating on a tight budget, this cost might be a significant consideration. Additionally, while Zapier does support thousands of apps, there can occasionally be specific integrations or complex workflows that it doesn't handle well. This might require teams to seek additional tools or custom solutions, which can complicate their tech stack.
Our Take
Zapier’s AI-powered automation platform helps startups and small businesses streamline workflows and connect the tools they rely on. By handling repetitive tasks, Zapier gives you more time to focus on growing your business.
15. Synthesia: AI Avatars & Voices
Synthesia is an AI company that offers video generation tools perfect for startups and small businesses. They provide realistic AI avatars and voices that can be used to create professional explainer videos, social media clips, and more.
Using Synthesia’s AI Video Generator, you can create custom videos without needing any equipment, filming expertise or actors. Their easy-to-use platform allows you to generate professional HD videos in just a few minutes by simply typing in a script. The AI takes care of the rest by syncing the speech to your chosen avatar and background.
Features
- Diverse Avatar & Voice Options: Synthesia offers over 140 diverse AI avatars to choose from, including different ethnicities, ages, and styles. They also offer a selection of 120+ AI voices in various languages, allowing you to create videos in over 120 languages.
- Customizable Avatars: Synthesia allows you to personalize your avatar's appearance, including their clothing and background, to suit your content and audience.
- Multi-Language Support: The platform can generate videos in various languages and accents, making it a powerful tool for producing localized content for international audiences.
- In-App Editing: Synthesia provides built-in editing tools, allowing you to edit your videos directly in the platform without needing additional software.
- Text to Speech: The platform converts your text into natural-sounding speech, providing your videos with a realistic and professional audio quality.
- Video Templates: Synthesia offers a variety of pre-made video templates that can help you quickly produce professional-grade videos.
Pricing
Synthesia offers a Personal plan that costs $30 per month. It includes 1 user seat, 10 video credits per month, 10 scenes, access to 90+ AI avatars, and the ability to use 120+ languages and voices. Depending on your team's needs, you can also consider their custom Enterprise plan for a better fit.
Why Teams Need This
Synthesia can be a powerful tool for small teams looking to create high-quality video content without the traditional overheads. It eliminates the need for expensive equipment, filming locations, and complex editing software. By simply typing a script, teams can generate professional-grade videos featuring customizable avatars. Its multilingual capabilities also make it easier for small teams to reach international audiences without language barriers.
Limitation
While Synthesia provides an array of voice options, some users have pointed out that the synthesized voices might not be perfect and might lack the nuanced inflections of natural human speech. Also, despite the impressive customization features, the range of options is still inferior to the unlimited possibilities of traditional video production.
Our Take
For startups and small businesses, this tool provides an affordable way to create marketing videos, explainer clips, social media content, and training materials. The generated videos look extremely natural and realistic, allowing you to get high quality, customized video content without a huge investment of time or money. Their diverse avatar and voice options, combined with an intuitive interface, make it easy for even non-technical users to create professional videos.
16. Brand24: AI Brand Assistant
Brand24 is a comprehensive media monitoring and social listening tool designed to track your selected keywords across various online platforms. Beyond just collecting mentions, it also provides in-depth analysis to offer insights into your online performance.
One of the standout features of Brand24 is its AI Brand Assistant, an AI-powered chatbot that can address any questions about your online performance. This functionality allows you to quickly harness the tool's power without needing extensive familiarity with its interface.
Features
- Mentions collection: Don't miss out on any comments people leave about your brand online.
- Sentiment analysis: Learn your audience’s feelings about your brand.
- Geo-localization: Discover in which countries your brand is the most popular.
- Anomalies Detection: Immediately identify changes in reach and sentiment together with their cause.
- Measure metrics: Analyze your performance by measuring metrics like Presence Score, Reputation Score, Reach, AVE, and more.
- Find influencers: Brand24 helps you find the right influencers for your company by identifying the most influential people already talking about your brand.
- Competitor analysis: Compare your company with your competitors and discover how to get ahead.
- Topic Analysis: Uncover the most trendy topics relating to your project.
- AI-powered performance insights: Emotion, Intents, and Metrics AI-powered analysis will help you pull out the most relevant insights from your media monitoring project.
- AI Brand Assistant: Ask our AI-powered chatbot any questions about your brand performance and data collected in your project.
- Manage hashtags: Identify relevant hashtags and track your branded hashtag.
Pricing
Brand24 offers a free 14-day trial for new users. There are four paid plans to choose from: Individual, Team, Pro, and Enterprise. The Pro plan is popular with mid-sized companies. It lets you monitor up to 12 keywords and collect about 25,000 mentions per month on average.
Why Teams need this
By providing insights into online mentions, Brand24 facilitates seamless communication with your audience, enabling prompt responses to feedback and fostering stronger customer relationships.
Moreover, you can track the overall success of your brand, evaluate the performance of specific campaigns or hashtags, and even conduct a SWOT analysis to monitor your competitors.
Limitation
Brand24 encounters two main limitations typical for all media monitoring tools. Firstly, access to certain platforms is restricted due to their privacy policies. This is a widespread challenge as some platforms prohibit data collection on their sites or limit access. Secondly, sentiment analysis faces limitations in interpreting sarcasm, irony, and humor, which can result in inaccuracies in sentiment assignment. However, such instances are typically rare and don't significantly impact the overall results of your monitoring project.
Our Take
Brand24 caters to both small startups and large corporations, offering a wide range of plans that can be personalized to suit any company's needs. This media monitoring tool provides in-depth insights into your performance across social media platforms and beyond. It safeguards your online reputation, which is pivotal in today's digital age.
17. Appypie: AI Website Builder
Appy Pie’s AI website builder brings your digital dreams to life without writing a single line of code. It's more than just a platform; it's a launchpad for innovation, serving entrepreneurs and creators. Appy Pie's intuitive design, coupled with a suite of AI-powered tools, simplifies the creation of polished websites and apps. Imagine having a digital wizard at your side, navigating you through any tech challenges.
Features
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: The drag-and-drop interface allows users to add or remove features, enabling seamless customization and rapid development without the need for coding knowledge.
- Cross-Platform Functionality: Users can create cross-platform solutions that work seamlessly across different devices and operating systems.
- Customization Options: It offers a wide range of customization options, from templates and themes to branding elements and functionalities
- Geolocation Services: Appy Pie's geolocation capabilities enable users to incorporate location-based features into their websites and apps.
Pricing
Appy Pie has a free 7-day trial. Plans start at $18/month for start and $36/month for grow.
Why Teams Need This
Teams require agile and cost-effective solutions to carve out a robust online presence and streamline their workflows. This strategy not only conserves time and resources but also encourages innovation, allowing teams to swiftly navigate through evolving market trends in software development.
Limitation
While Appy Pie offers a sweeping set of features and customization options, it may have limitations for highly complex or specialized projects requiring advanced coding or integrations. However, for most small to medium-sized businesses and individual entrepreneurs, Appy Pie provides a powerful and accessible solution for their digital transformation needs.
Our Take
Appy Pie is a game-changer for businesses and individuals to build a strong digital presence easily without barriers like coding skills or resources. With its interface, features, and pricing, Appy Pie empowers teams to create professional websites, apps, and workflows.
Conclusion
So there you have it, 15+ of the best AI tools every small business needs to leverage in 2024. The future is here, and AI is transforming how companies operate and scale. Start leveraging these innovative technologies today to future-proof your business and gain a competitive edge. The rewards are huge for those bold enough to take the plunge. Here's to your success!