10 Best AI tools for small business

Over the years, artificial intelligence has demonstrated its impact and potential for growth. Gone are the days of manually scheduling meetings, brainstorming creative content, or proofreading documents entirely by hand. AI has paved the way for a better and faster way to manage daily tasks.

This article explores how AI can help small businesses like yours. Explore our list of 10 helpful online tools, plus their key features and costs below.

How can AI be used in a small business?

If you invest in AI for your workflow, you can expect an increase in your team’s overall productivity and efficiency. It allows you to buy back the time you’d usually spend on repetitive tasks. Plus, it’s a smart way to cut costs without compromising the quality of your products and services.

Here are just some of the ways you can integrate AI into your business:

• Content creation
• Onboarding and training
• Customer service
• Email marketing
• Copywriting
• Social media management

With so many AI tools available online, it can get overwhelming to make a decision. Factors like cost, user-friendly interface, security, and flexibility are important qualities to consider. But don’t worry! We’ve got your back. Check out our 10 AI solutions, from onboarding your team to managing social media marketing, crafting copywriting, and more.

AI tool for small business #1 - SC Training

We’re starting strong with an efficient platform for onboarding and training your team. If you’re struggling to keep them in the loop on recent developments, SC Training’s (formerly EdApp) got you covered. It’s perfect for business owners who need a cost-effective solution to workplace learning.

Are you looking for a fun way to enhance your team’s understanding of product features, service rules, or policies? Why not try to create a course with AI? With the power of artificial intelligence on your side, you can say goodbye to long hours spent brainstorming ideas. 

Its creator tool can do all the heavy lifting for you. Simply upload a maximum of six photos or input a text prompt into the box, and you’ll receive a course you can quickly deploy to your team in minutes.

Aside from upskilling your team, you can use custom certificates to recognize top learners. This is an effective way to celebrate employee milestones and motivate them to work harder. These certificates can be shared on LinkedIn, which doubles as a free advertisement for your business.

Cost: Free (up to 10 users); paid plans available

Key features:

• Create with AI
• Admin experience
• Briefcase
• Template library
• Reporting and analytics
• Editable course library
• Custom certificates

Use this cost-effective AI tool for small business. Join SC Training today.

AI tool for small business #2 - Trello

Up next is Trello, a convenient tool for project management. Its custom boards allow your team to plot and execute ideas from start to finish. You can use the timeline to assign deadlines, then categorize them by member or list as necessary.

Its editorial calendar lets you combine your content creation plans and product launches. You can treat this as a whiteboard and invite others to pop in with their ideas anytime. This tool also integrates with popular apps like Slack, Dropbox, and Microsoft Teams.

Cost: Free; paid plans start at 5 USD

Key features:

• Editorial calendar
• Timeline
• Project roadmap
• Templates

AI tool for small business #3 - Mailmodo

Mailmodo is an email platform that will help improve your conversion rate. Designed like an app with interactive features, this helps you spark better conversations and copy. If you’re the type to spend hours plotting out the content of your email, the suggestion tool will come in handy. This notifies you of any broken links or spam words to fix before you hit send.

Crafting the subject line of your email is crucial to keeping your customers’ interest. If it’s not catchy enough, they likely won’t respond anytime soon. Fortunately, Mailmodo is one of those AI tools for small business that uses generative AI to craft subject lines and pre-header suggestions to help you out.

Cost: Starts at 49 USD/month

Key features:

• Smart template suggestions
• Fragmented scheduling
• Automations
• AI-generated subject lines and pre-headers

AI tool for small business #4 - Flick

Up next is an AI tool assistant for managing your social media pages. Flick is a marketing platform designed to speed up your content creation and planning process. This is ideal for small businesses that don’t have the extra budget to hire a member responsible for monitoring their social pages and boosting conversion rates.

To help you save time, its post scheduler allows you to plot and draft your social media posts in advance. ThisAI for small business also suggests the best time to post to attract more clicks by analyzing the insights gathered from your Instagram audience

Cost: Starts at £14/user/month

Key features:

• AI social marketing assistant
• Hashtag tool
• Instagram analytics reports
• Post scheduler

AI tool for small business #5 - Grammarly

Looking to speed up your copywriting process? Grammarly can do the trick. Its AI software revamps the quality of your writing. From brainstorming captions to sending partnership emails, it gives you ideas for your copy.

Digital communications can be tricky, as the wrong tone can make a poor impression on customers. Thankfully, this AI learning platform comes with tone suggestions to help you refine your messaging. Grammarly also offers integrations across several apps and websites like Google Docs, Gmail, LinkedIn, and Slack, so there’s no need to switch workflow stations. 

Cost: Free; paid plans start at 12 USD/month

Key features:

• Paragraph rewrites
• Proofreading
• Tone suggestions
• Integrated workflows

AI tool for small business #6 - Loom AI

Loom AI automatically enhances your videos to produce better engagement. With auto titles, you don’t have to spend hours thinking about the perfect title for your video. And if you stutter a lot during the recording, the editor panel is equipped with a feature to remove filler words afterward.

AI tools for small business like this automatically generate a text document of your recording, which you can revise anytime in its built-in text editor. While you can try the platform for free, note that its AI features can only be enjoyed upon purchasing the Loom AI suite add-on to your existing plan.

Cost: 5 USD/creator/month

Key features:

• Auto titles
• Filler-word removal 
• Auto-create documents and messages
• AI workflows

AI tool for small business #7 - Canva

Fuel your creativity with Canva, an online graphic design tool to help grow your business. Hiring an artist to create branded content for you can be pricey, so this AI tool is a cost-efficient alternative. You don’t have to be an expert designer to start—choose from a wide range of poster templates that suit your taste.

Canva’s AI solutions for small business will help elevate your social media presence. However, keep in mind that several AI images cannot be downloaded for free, as these are reserved for Pro users. So if you wish to unlock all its premium features, make sure to set aside a budget for its monthly subscription.

Cost: Free; paid plans start at 10 USD/user/month

Key features:

• AI image generator
• Poster templates
• Curved text generator
• Photo enhancer

AI tool for small business #8 - Appy Pie Design

With Appy Pie Design, you can whip up posters and banners from text prompts. Its flawless text feature promises to deliver accurate text for your images. Simply enter a detailed prompt into the box and wait for the AI generator to produce the image.

You can edit these designs in the editor dashboard, adjusting text placement or adding backgrounds to stock photos as needed. Its background remover also lets you stamp out unnecessary elements in your photos. This can be combined with the AI images you’ve generated earlier.

Cost: Starts at 16 USD/month

Key features:

• AI image generator
• Flawless text
• Background remover
• AI logo generator

AI tool for small business #9 - ChatGPT

ChatGPT is one of those AI tools for small business that’s designed to boost productivity. It's a chatbot assistant that can answer any question you may have. From asking AI to revise chunky paragraphs to solving basic math problems, this tool can get the job done.

In recent years, artificial intelligence has worked hard to offer relevant and accurate feedback. The GPT part is short for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” which regularly processes human feedback to deliver higher-quality responses. Among our list, ChatGPT is one of the top free AI tools that can cater to any type of small business.

Cost: Free; paid plans start at 20 USD/month

Key features:

• Web browsing
• Text documents
• Image generation
• Problem-solving assistance

AI tool for small business #10 - SurveyMonkey

For small teams working on product development, SurveyMonkey can speed up your research. The platform lets you collect feedback from potential customers through surveys and forms. This can be shared through web links or embedded on your website.

Aside from marketing and production, you can also use surveys to plan events. Input a prompt into the box, and watch SurveyMonkey Genius use AI to speed up the survey creation process. However, the downside is that the free plan only allows you to create 10 questions and collect 25 responses per survey.

Cost: Free; paid plans start at 25 USD/month

Key features:

• Survey score
• Question-type prediction
• AI-powered insights
• Response quality

Start using the best AI tools for small business. Join SC Training today.