AI in Business: 15 Practical Ways It’s Changing How Companies Work
Jacob Lee
October 7, 2024
Artificial intelligence is not new anymore. The buzzword phase is over; it’s now in the part of the adoption curve where people stop talking about the hype and start quietly building with it. In many ways, AI is becoming the kind of technology that’s almost invisible. You use it, you benefit from it, but you don’t always think about it. And the best technologies are often like that—they vanish into the background, becoming another tool in the toolbox.
What makes AI especially interesting for companies is its versatility. It’s not just one thing; it’s a way of solving problems that were, until now, unsolvable. AI has become the ultimate multi-tool, capable of fitting itself to the unique challenges of different industries. Here are 15of the most promising applications of AI in business today.
1. Customer Service Automation
AI has become quite good at automating customer service. Mastercard is a great example. The credit card giant uses AI chatbots to offer quick, relevant answers to user queries, personalizing recommendations, providing insight into account balances, and reviewing transaction histories. This shift isn’t just about reducing costs—it’s about giving customers what they need more quickly and consistently.
2. Personalized Marketing
Personalization has always been the holy grail of marketing, and AI makes it possible at scale. Companies like Amazon and Netflix have set the standard here, but you don’t need to be a tech giant to benefit. AI algorithms analyze user behavior to predict what customers might want, letting even smaller businesses offer a personal touch—often with better precision than the best human marketer.
3. Predictive Analytics
Companies have always tried to predict what’s coming next—how much inventory they’ll need, which product lines are likely to perform, and which customers risk leaving. Mastercard uses AI-based predictive models to spot unusual activity, helping prevent fraud by learning what normal behavior looks like for each customer. AI makes these predictions more reliable. By analyzing historical data and spotting patterns that would be invisible to a human, AI can tell a company not just what will happen, but what to do about it.
4. Recruiting and Talent Management
AI tools can help streamline hiring by sifting through resumes faster and even assessing candidate suitability. More interesting, though, is how companies use AI to make hiring more objective—analyzing language patterns in interviews, for example, to ensure biases don’t creep in. Once a team is in place, AI can also help with ongoing performance evaluations and personalized training suggestions.
5. Supply Chain Optimization
AI has found a perfect home in the world of logistics. Supply chains have so many moving parts that it’s always been hard for humans to make them efficient. For instance, Goldman Sachs uses AI to streamline internal workflows, employing generative AI for documentation automation and optimizing internal processes. AI optimizes routes, predicts disruptions, and even adjusts procurement strategies. AI-driven supply chains are more resilient and make businesses more competitive by cutting costs and reducing waste.
6. Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting has always been more of an art than a science. AI is changing that. AI models analyze past performance, market conditions, and customer behavior to predict future sales more accurately than a human ever could. Knowing what’s coming next helps companies allocate resources better—from budgeting to staffing.
7. Fraud Detection
Fraud detection might be one of AI’s most important—and least visible—uses. Financial institutions have always had teams working on it, but AI can find anomalies in data that a human analyst might miss. These models always watch for the unexpected, making transactions safer without inconveniencing customers.
8. Dynamic Pricing
Ever notice how the price of an airline ticket seems to change every hour? That’s dynamic pricing, and AI makes it possible. AI looks at demand, competitor pricing, time of day, and other variables to constantly adjust prices. It sounds complicated, but the goal is simple: find the sweet spot that maximizes revenue while still being fair to customers.
9. Product Recommendations
If you’ve ever bought a product because it was “recommended for you,” you’ve experienced AI at work. Recommendation systems are everywhere now. Even niche websites and apps can use them. The idea is to guide users to what they’ll find most useful or enjoyable, creating a better experience that keeps them coming back.
10. Sentiment Analysis
Companies want to know how customers feel about them. This used to mean hiring people to read reviews, scroll through social media, and maybe send out surveys. Now, AI can handle that. Sentiment analysis tools can analyze language at scale, parsing out whether the general feeling toward a brand or product is positive, negative, or neutral.
11. Quality Control in Manufacturing
Factories are deploying AI to make sure their products meet quality standards. This typically involves using computer vision to spot defects. But it’s not just about catching mistakes; AI can also help prevent them by finding patterns in production data that predict when something is about to go wrong.
12. Energy Management
AI is being used to optimize consumption in industries that consume a lot of energy. By predicting energy needs based on production schedules, weather patterns, and other variables, companies can save money and reduce their carbon footprint. It’s not the most glamorous application, but it has a real impact.
13. Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants are not just for consumers. Companies are using them internally too, as tools that help employees find information, schedule meetings, or even track projects. These assistants can save time and ensure employees spend more of their day on actual work, not logistics.
14. Financial Modeling
Finance teams are adopting AI for modeling scenarios and managing risk. AI models are more flexible and can handle much larger data sets than traditional tools. They’re being used for everything from investment analysis to budgeting, providing more detailed insights in less time.
15. AI in R&D
Perhaps the most transformative use of AI for companies is in R&D. Morgan Stanley, for instance, uses generative AI to streamline research, allowing financial advisors to offer more insightful advice in less time by scanning massive databases for key trends. AI doesn’t just analyze data—it can help generate hypotheses. This has huge implications for pharmaceuticals, engineering, and any field where companies are trying to invent something new. By modeling outcomes before actual experiments, AI speeds up the pace of innovation.
AI as a Utility: The New Electricity
In the early 20th century, electrification transformed industry. AI is doing the same now, in subtler ways. It doesn’t announce itself with cables and power plants; it integrates quietly, optimizing, predicting, and improving. And much like electricity, AI’s value comes from how you use it. The same model that improves supply chain efficiency in one business might help an entirely different one recommend the perfect playlist.
It’s not enough to just have AI tools—the real key is to know how to use them to solve your specific problems. And while it might seem like AI is a playground for big companies, the truth is, the tools are becoming more accessible every day. Startups and SMEs can benefit as much, if not more, from these efficiencies.
If you’re a startup or an SME wondering how AI could transform your business, it helps to start with the right partner. At Linkt.ai, we specialize in building AI solutions that fit the needs of companies that don’t have the resources of a Fortune 500—but still want to use world-class technology. AI isn’t just for Silicon Valley anymore. It’s time for everyone else to join in.
The real magic of AI isn’t in the technology itself—it’s in the impact it can have when solving real problems. What are the biggest challenges your business faces? Could AI make them disappear, or at least shrink them down to size?