The business world is evolving rapidly thanks to digitalization, and many businesses are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency, drive innovation, and gain a competitive edge. A recent survey suggests that AI has the potential to automate about 40% of the average work day, driving work productivity as a result. But it’s one thing knowing how beneficial AI is for your business and quite another thing to understand what your business needs, especially with so many options available. The following tips will help you choose the right AI-enabled tools for your business.

1. Have clear business goals

Having clear and measurable goals for your business would be best, and your ideal AI tool should help you drive those goals. Your targets should be measurable and align with your business objectives. For example, are you looking to cut business costs? Do you want to gain some level of competitive advantage? Are you trying to improve customer satisfaction? Such questions can determine what your goals are and guide your evaluation process. 

2. Identify your business needs

One important tip is identifying specific challenges you want to address and determining the best AI-enabled tools. Whether you want to automate contract processes, improve customer experience, enhance your decision-making process, get better insights from data, or optimize your supply chain management process, you must clearly define your objectives. That’s the only way to identify what tools will help you solve or address your challenges. For example, if you deal with or manage several contracts daily, you can use AI-enabled software designed for contract extraction, digitization, contract comparison, and categorizing all contractual commitments.

3. Evaluate your technical requirements and constraints

Do you need to consider any compatibility issues? What about maintenance costs, data requirements, security, scalability, and reliability issues? Are you looking for unique features in your ideal software? Do you or your staff possess the required know-how to operate and maximize your preferred software, or will you need third-party assistance? These questions can help you evaluate the technical requirements you need to meet and understand your constraints regarding using any AI software. You will also be able to compare and contrast software features, potential benefits, and trade-offs of different tools before deciding on the one that meets your expectations and matches your technical needs. 

4. Consider the tools available and evaluate their capabilities

So, you’ve assessed your business needs, you know what goals you want to achieve, and you understand your technical constraints. It’s time to consider the available AI tools and evaluate their capabilities. Recent studies show that there are 14,700 AI startups in the US alone, each offering a different AI tool. That shows how wide your pool of options is. 

You need to take the time to explore, conduct thorough research, and monitor the AI market to identify tools suitable for your business. You can use industry publications, various online resources, and other reputable sources to gain valuable insights about new tools, trends, and functionalities. Some tools may appear groundbreaking initially, only to prove irrelevant, so you must continuously assess a tool’s capabilities, performance, and accuracy before investing.