Cathie Wood, founder and CEO of Ark Invest, believes that artificial intelligence (AI) will become a bigger market than mobile over the next two decades. Companies from equipment maker John Deere to Google have embraced artificial intelligence. Retailers like Amazon have been at the forefront of adopting AI. As the world embraces the AI revolution, it's important for retailers like you to understand how to use AI to increase their e-commerce sales.
According to research published last year by the Society for Human Resource Management, nearly 43% of small businesses with 500 or fewer employees had adopted a range of solutions to survive. The main ones of these solutions were:
The pandemic has forced businesses to experiment with a range of tools and offerings in order to survive at a time when the risk of business failure has never been greater. Technology has been at the forefront of these efforts.
AI can be used to help companies solve various problems.
Prevent cash flow problems
Although there are federal stimulus funds, the risk of business bankruptcy due to the pandemic is still high. According to a 2020 report by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the number of active entrepreneurs in the country fell by 22% to some 3.3 million people, over the period February-April 2020. Roughly a third of small businesses had cash flow problems, preventing them from making their payroll or paying their bills.
AI can help small businesses forecast their cash flow, allowing them to make better decisions and avoid the cash pitfalls that can be so devastating for entrepreneurs.
Streamlining payment processes
AI can also help your business streamline its payment processes, which is especially important for e-commerce sites. Streamlining can be done using tools that allow pre-qualification of prospects and leads. This is because many visitors to your websites will not buy anything. Traffic is not a sale. You want to target the right audience to drive sales. Not targeting the right audience is costly and prevents revenue generation. A study revealed that 80% of new leads were not converted into sales.
Ai, through chatbots and other similar tools, can use the extensive data it collects to uncover information about visitors who are likely to become paying customers. This allows you to be more successful in converting leads into customers.
Find security vulnerabilities
In the age of data, securing that data has never been more important. Risks have increased due to remote and hybrid work models. With so many workers working offsite, securing company data is more complex than one might imagine. It's no surprise that the rate of cybercrime complaints has increased by more than 300% since the start of the pandemic.
AI can help your business detect security vulnerabilities, often more effectively than your cybersecurity teams.
So while you wait to have your firewood delivered, consider how AI can help your small business overcome the challenges and threats of the times.
