how AI Tools That Can Run Half Your Business While You Sleep
The dream of running a business that runs itself without needing your direct involvement is no longer a fantasy. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), entrepreneurs can now automate numerous aspects of their businesses—freeing up time for additional strategic planning, creativity, or even some well-deserved sleep.
Here we'll discuss how AI can control content creation, automation, email follow-ups, and design work—enabling you to run half (or more) of your business during your sleep.
What is AI, and How Can Your Business Profit From It?
Artificial Intelligence is the replication of human intelligence processes by machines or computers. These processes include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding. AI for business is a powerful tool for automating tasks that are repetitive, streamlining workflow to be more efficient, and providing insights that can be utilized to improve operations.
AI tools can save entrepreneurs time, minimize errors, and help businesses scale effectively. With the appropriate AI tools, you can operate whole segments of your business without having to continuously monitor or manage them. Following are some of the ways AI can take care of your business while you're asleep.
1. AI for Content Creation
Content creation is probably the most time-consuming task for any online business owner. No matter if you're developing blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, or video scripts, content is the key to engaging your audience. But quality content can take hours of your day.
This is where AI-powered tools come to your rescue to help you generate content at scale:
AI Writing Assistants
AI writing software like Jasper, Copy.ai, and Writesonic can generate articles, blog posts, product descriptions, social media captions, and more in seconds. They are trained on advanced language models that understand context, tone, and style. By feeding prompts to these software tools, you can generate high-quality written content with minimal effort.
For example:
Jasper: Jasper can create content in your brand's voice. It can write long-form content, optimize the content you have for SEO, and even create social media posts that interact with your audience.
Copy.ai: Perfect for shorter-form content like social media posts, email newsletters, and product descriptions, Copy.ai has you input your product or service, and it generates copy that you can use directly or edit further.
AI for Video Scriptwriting
AI is not just limited to text content. Video content is also growing at a very rapid rate, and AI can be utilized for script generation and even video creation. Pictory.ai allows you to create video scripts and even videos from text content. It has the ability to automatically turn blogs into engaging videos by summarizing and narrating the blog.
AI for Content Curation
Another challenge that business owners face is identifying suitable content to post to their audiences. AI-driven solutions like Curata and Feedly gather, curate, and suggest articles, blog posts, and news that pertain to your niche. This ensures that your audience remains current with fresh, pertinent content without your having to do the research yourself.
These tools enable you to have a stream of quality content constantly going out, which will engage your audience and bring you traffic—even when you're not working.
2. Automating Your Business Tasks with AI
Automation is a game-changer for businesses. Scheduling, reminders, data entry, and even customer service can all be fully automated with AI. This allows you to do more important things while AI handles the repetitive ones.
AI for Email Automation
Email marketing is an excellent means of continuing to nurture your audience and keeping them interested. Thanks to AI-driven email automation software, you can automate replies, send personalized emails en masse, and even monitor the performance of your emails.
Mailchimp: As well known for Mailchimp's email marketing automation as Mailchimp is, its AI features enable Mailchimp to suggest the optimal times to send an email, divide audiences based on their behavior, and automate follow-up emails.
ConvertKit: ConvertKit's automation features utilize AI to send emails in response to customer behavior. Whether sending a welcome message when someone subscribes or promoting a discount based on customer behavior, ConvertKit can do it all.
AI for Social Media Management
Social media management can be very time-intensive, but AI tools can end up automating much of the posting process. Websites like Buffer and Hootsuite allow you to post ahead of time, monitor engagement, and even automatically respond to customer inquiries. AI can even keep an eye on your social media performance, advising when best to post and what type of content works best.
Buffer: Buffer AI capabilities suggest the optimal posting schedule for your social media profiles, and it even helps in content optimization by analyzing the behavior of your audience.
Hootsuite: Hootsuite not only facilitates posting automation but also provides analytics and suggests content strategies based on your audience's activity.
AI for CRM and Lead Management
Customer relationship management (CRM) and lead nurturing are vital to the growth of any business. AI can make it easier by automating processes like lead scoring, segmentation, and communication.
HubSpot: HubSpot's AI-powered CRM can automate the entire sales funnel—from lead capture to contact management and lead nurturing via personalized emails. It also tracks the activity of customers and recommends follow-up automatically.
With the help of these AI tools, you can make your interactions with customers timely, personalized, and efficient—without manually following up with every lead or customer.
3. AI for Email Responses and Customer Support
Customer service is crucial to a business's success, but it can be difficult to keep up with inquiries, especially if you're a one-person operation. AI software, specifically chatbots, can provide automated service, answer commonly asked questions, and help make sure your customers receive timely responses.
AI Chatbots
AI-driven chatbots, such as Intercom, Drift, and ManyChat, can manage customer inquiries, book appointments, and even handle common troubleshooting issues. These tools can be integrated into your website, social media platforms, or even within your email marketing system.
Intercom: Intercom’s chatbot can provide immediate responses to customer queries, helping to reduce wait times. It also learns from interactions, improving its ability to assist over time.
ManyChat: ManyChat is a Facebook Messenger interaction automation specialist. You can utilize it to respond to customers' questions, gather feedback, or generate sales without manual intervention.
With AI-driven chatbots, you can provide 24/7 support and significantly cut down your response time—without adding new team members.
4. AI for Graphic Design
Creating high-quality graphics for your company can be both time-consuming and costly. AI design tools are going to alter that.
AI for Creating Graphics
Designing tools like Canva, Designhill, and Crello allow you to create stunning visuals for social media, websites, and more without the need for professional design experience. These tools use AI to recommend templates, color schemes, and layouts for your content and business type.
Canva: Canva's AI-powered design assistant will help you design social media graphics, presentations, and even video content by suggesting design templates based on your business needs.
Crello: Crello offers over 30,000 templates for various design projects. It also features an AI-driven "animation" tool, which automatically turns your designs into animated graphics.
AI for Logo Design
Your company's identity is your logo, and it should be done correctly. AI-driven platforms like Looka and Hatchful allow you to create logos quickly and cheaply, without the need for a professional designer.
Looka: Looka AI helps you to generate logos from your preference, business name, and style. It even lets you customize the design and purchase additional brandings.
Hatchful by Shopify: Hatchful uses AI to create professional logos from your preference. It is suitable for small businesses needing quick and affordable logo designs.
These AI design tools can help you create professional designs in no time, so your business has a strong and consistent brand identity.
5. AI for Analytics and Business Insights
To make business decisions, you need to have accurate data. AI tools can provide you with actionable insights that allow you to know your audience, anticipate trends, and make informed decisions.
AI for Analytics
Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, and Crazy Egg are a few of the tools that use AI to analyze visitor behavior on your website, track conversions, and identify areas of improvement.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics now has AI features that provide predictive insights to you so that you understand the likely behavior of customers and optimize your website's performance accordingly.
Kissmetrics: Kissmetrics uses AI so that you can track individual customer journeys, segment your audience, and identify areas of improvement.
Using AI analytics tools, you can keep up with your business performance while automating the process of data gathering and interpretation.
Conclusion: The Future of Business is Powered by AI
AI is no longer a luxury that only large businesses can have. Small entrepreneurs and solopreneurs can now utilize AI tools to run their businesses more efficiently, achieve a decrease in workload, and even make money while they sleep. Whether it is automating content creation, making customer service easier, or designing graphics, AI is a blessing for entrepreneurs today.
By embracing these tools, you can focus on expanding your company and achieving your goals, while freeing up time to work on whatever is most critical. The future is here—and it's AI-powered.
