AI for Business: 7 Powerful Ways Businesses Use AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world in the most wonderful of ways. Just recently, Google’s co-scientist solved a complex superbug immunity problem in only two days, which had taken microbiologists at Imperial College London a decade to reach the same conclusion. It’s not just Google using AI — businesses of all sizes are now beginning to realise the full potential of AI.

A prime example of this is Community Vision, which, in conjunction with Salesforce, used AI to automate and optimise scheduling and client management processes, allowing support workers to be more productive — and resulting in a 30% reduction in customer call volumes. As AI systems improve at mimicking human behaviour, automating repetitive tasks, and making more informed decisions, their potential becomes limitless.

This presents an excellent opportunity for companies to embrace digital transformation, enhance competitiveness, drive innovation, and deliver more value to customers. Let’s explore how businesses use AI and how you can, too.

Basic automatic robots have been around for quite some time in the form of robotic process automation (RPA), which can consistently perform a single rule-based task, such as those found within production lines.

However, AI and machine learning have taken process automation further to the point that some companies now see them as indispensable tools for automating advanced processes that are otherwise susceptible to human error.

For instance, modern AI automation solutions can use ML algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse real-time business data to make savvy and autonomous decisions. This allows businesses to automate workflows and coordinate tasks independently, which frees up time for specialists to focus on tasks that maximise their expertise and improve organisational performance.

AI is mastering how to create on-brand marketing content that adapts to a company’s audience and values. At the top level, generative AI solutions powered by large language models (LLMs) can produce multi-modal content at scale, including text-based blogs, imagery and video material. While human oversight is still necessary to maintain quality, an AI tool can manage all of the heavy lifting and allows marketers to prioritise optimising their campaigns from the top down.

The beauty of generative AI models like this is that they aren’t just creating run-of-the-mill copy. Instead, modern enterprise AI software like Einstein AI can analyse customer data and campaign metrics in seconds and social media sentiment to make smarter decisions about the best approach to content creation.

This allows organisations to save time on at-scale digital advertising without losing sight of their target audience’s needs.

Supply chain management is another area where AI is making hay whilst the sun is shining. Businesses can use artificial intelligence models to track inventory levels in real time to prevent their most popular products from going out of stock. Additionally, by analysing historical sales and marketing data, AI can forecast customer demand through predictive analytics, which helps companies adopt a more streamlined approach to ordering stock at different times of the year.

For companies that ship their products to businesses or consumers, AI can also optimise delivery routes by looking at traffic patterns and schedules. This can be very beneficial to those transporting medical samples and medicines or foods that have a limited shelf-life. Collectively, these benefits result in cost savings for businesses, which, in turn, can be passed on to customers through lower prices or improved services.

Business AI has become widely adopted in customer service primarily because it helps organisations provide immediate and on-brand support to people and frees up more time for their employees to focus on other high-value tasks.

For instance, chatbots and powerful AI agents use large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP) to respond to customer queries and can provide on-brand customer support 24/7. These solutions can understand user intent in context and then produce an answer based on its custom training dataset.

Take Australia’s Urban Rest, for instance. The premium accommodation provider launched in Sydney in 2017 before scaling at pace into Auckland and the UK. This rapid growth was hugely exciting for them, and they successfully navigated it by deploying Agentforce, the agentic layer of Salesforce, to build a custom AI agent.

After unifying customer data under our customer relationship management (CRM) software, the agent was able to engage with guests 24/7 using the brand’s tone of voice and could even answer common questions, such as customer queries about Wi-Fi codes.

AI general troubleshooting enabled reps at Urban Rest to focus on providing personalised customer experiences, which led to a 30% return on investment within 12 months.

Companies in industries like manufacturing and mining are also benefitting from AI by implementing it to address their maintenance needs more proactively. AI can integrate with sensors and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices to analyse real-time data that notifies them as soon as it finds an issue (typically when it detects a shifting trend or outlier compared with historical data).

For instance, if a manufacturer’s machinery was beginning to increase in temperature to concerning levels, an AI sensor could alert the business instantly so they can address the problem before it leads to catastrophic failure.

This reduces downtime while also allowing organisations to optimise their maintenance schedules. This AI use case has been big news for businesses in the aviation industry, too, where every aircraft needs to be evaluated and cleared before take off.

For example, Qantas, Australia’s premier airline business, uses AI to analyse engine performance and flight data against maintenance records to proactively fix any potential issues that might get flagged before a flight. Doing this helps them maintain an excellent safety and transit record and significantly reduces the costs involved or the need for flight cancellations.

The sales function is another part of the business landscape that has benefitted significantly from AI. By analysing customer information, previous sales calls and meeting notes, artificial intelligence enables sales reps to quickly determine what ground has already been covered, what stage prospects are in the pipeline and what they need to do next to guide the customer towards a sale.

Sales reps can also use our Sales AI solutions to analyse customer data to identify high-quality leads that are most likely to result in the closing of a deal. Sales AI can automatically create call summaries for customers and sales leads from past customer data and interaction histories. It allows sales reps to focus on prospects that are most likely to convert.

AI can free up time for sales reps to deliver personalised experiences to customers. One effective way is through recommendation engines that automatically analyse customer data and recommend new products or services.

You’ll no doubt be familiar with this kind of AI solution through streaming services like Netflix that recommend shows based on your previous watching habits or how Amazon can push related products based on customers' prior purchases.

Additionally, solutions like Marketing AI can analyse data to provide recommendations on everything from customer segmentation to email send times to create more personalised experiences for customers.

Salesforce Marketing AI lets companies learn more about their audience and use that data to personalise engagement at every touchpoint. This approach to AI marketing campaigns is one of the ways Salesforce helped pay.com.au fuel growth by delivering engaging customer experiences and increasing pay volume by a whopping 5,000%.

In profound ways, AI has weaved itself into business operations. We’ve seen AI successfully implemented in customer service, lead scoring and sales. We've also seen AI flourish in accounting and sales, enterprise risk management solutions, predictive maintenance setups, process automation, and much more. AI is being used in large enterprises and small businesses, too.

There is no question that adopting AI strategies enables businesses to make smarter decisions and keep customers happy while saving time on tasks that require a human touch. When set out as simply as that, it may come as no surprise that thousands of businesses across Australia are exploring new business applications of AI to integrate into their workflows and enhance their performance.

Salesforce Artificial Intelligence can help your business drive innovation and empower service reps, agents, and marketers with AI tools that create impact across your organisation. Watch a demo today to see how it can transform your business.