AI is already a top priority in many businesses, as demonstrated by the fact that 80% of companies in the retail sector some form of AI by 2025. It’s no wonder why. The proper use of AI helps companies to streamline their processes and create faster, leading to massive time and money savings.
So, like those 80% of retail companies – you want to adopt AI into your business practices. With these 10 tools, you’ll have everything you need to automate many of the manual tasks in your workflow.
Our top 10 AI tools for business
- HIX ArticleGPT – Best AI Content Generation Platform
- Pictory – Best AI Video Editor
- Surfer SEO – Best AI SEO Article Writing Tool
- Clockwise – Best AI Scheduling Tool
- DALL.E 2 – Best AI Image Generator
- Murf.ai – Best AI Text-to-Speech Tool
- Alli AI – Best AI Website Optimizing Tool
- AgentGPT – Best AI-Powered Agent
- Bricabrac – Best AI App Creation Suite
- Fireflies – Best AI Meeting Summarizer
HIX.AI – Best AI content generation platform
Packing over 120 AI-powered writing tools into a single package, HIX.AI is an all-in-one content generation assistant. Powered by the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 language models (depending on the user’s choices), its most powerful tool is ArticleGPT. It’s capable of writing everything from Amazon product descriptions and reviews to news articles and full how-to guides, all loaded with your company’s brand voice. Plus, it delivers up-to-date and fact-based information, meaning you don’t need to worry about receiving error-strewn articles.
The content generation process at HIX.AI is bolstered by HIX Editor and HIX Chat. The latter is a real-time AI chatbot, similar to ChatGPT, that can access the web to offer up-to-date facts and statistics to build into your articles. Combine that with the HIX Editor – a tool that uses AI to edit your articles as you write – and you get a comprehensive toolset designed to simplify the copy creation process to the point where you can bulk generate many articles in a matter of minutes.
Pros:
- Ideal for international brands thanks to offering over 50 languages
- Useful paraphrasing tool helps you put a new spin on existing articles
- Able to summarize video content and convert videos into articles
- Can quickly export generated copy to Google Docs and WordPress
Cons:
- You only get 3,000 words of generated content in its free tier
- Copy occasionally needs human editing
Pictory – Best AI video editor
Founded in 2019, Pictory is a video creation and editing suite that raised a touch over $2.6 million in its latest funding round. The tool is capable of taking a script or article provided by the user and transforming it into an AI-generated video that users can post on YouTube or their social media channels.
It also offers handy video editing features that require no actual expertise on the user’s part. Simply upload a video and input text commands to have the tool make the edits you want without you having to physically manipulate the video footage.
Pros:
- Clean user interface that’s great for beginners
- Finds relevant media files to match your text
- Responsive customer service team
Cons:
- Tends to experience slowdown with larger articles and scripts
- No collaborative tools
- You have to pay more to access its best video editing features
Surfer SEO – Best AI SEO article writing tool
Rather than using AI to generate content for you, Surfer SEO delivers the SEO building blocks needed for you to write optimized pieces. It scans the web to find the top-ranking articles for your chosen keyword before providing a list of keywords – in addition to article structuring advice – so you can get your piece to rank alongside the ones it finds.
The helpful scoring system built into the tool analyzes your copy as you write, granting a score out of 100 based on keyword usage, headings, and structure.
Pros:
- Suggests tons of secondary keywords
- Can auto-fill your article with headings
- Able to automatically insert keywords into your articles
Cons:
- It’s structure suggestions often ask for too many headings or images
- Automatic outlining is based on existing articles
- Starts lagging when you get the 2,000-word mark in its content editor
Clockwise – Best AI scheduling tool
Since its 2016 launch, Clockwise has managed to raise about $45 million in funding. It’s used that money to create an AI-powered scheduling tool that can optimize the schedules of you and your teammates. Integration with Google Calendar is available, with promises for future integration with Microsoft 365 in the pipeline.
The tool’s at its most effective when you have multiple users, as it’s able to automatically schedule and reschedule meetings based on the availability of each participant.
Pros:
- Very simple user interface
- Can reschedule meetings on the fly based on your schedule
- Assign “Focus Time” sessions to encourage you to take breaks
Cons:
- The pricing structure is overly complex
- Glitchy “Travel Time” scheduling feature
DALL.E 2 – Best AI image generator
A product of the OpenAI team – the group behind ChatGPT – DALL.E 2 uses natural language processing to generate imagery based on your text prompts. Launched in 2022, the tool uses AI to pull various styles and concepts from around the web to create unique pictures.
This second iteration of the software introduces higher-resolution images than the first, with the ability to create pictures up to four times sharper. But like ChatGPT, it has limitations in that it can’t create artwork related to violence of adult imagery.
Pros:
- Generates imagery for blog posts quickly
- The free tier gives you 50 credits in your first month and 15 for each month thereafter
- You own the copyright on any images generated
Cons:
- Like most AI image generators, it seems to struggle with human fingers
- Better for surrealism than photorealism
Murf.ai – Best AI text-to-speech tool
Launched in 2020, Murf provides access to over 120 text-to-speech voices (each generated using AI) that can read the text you enter in 20-plus languages. That makes it ideal for companies that make a lot of video content as it helps them save money they’d otherwise spend on voice actors.
The tool also incorporates a basic “Voice Maker” tool. This syncs your chosen voice and script to videos and imagery that you upload so you don’t have to mess around with video editing.
Pros:
- Intuitive user interface that’s beginner-friendly
- Allows you to customize and edit its selection of AI voices
- Voices generally sound very human-like
Cons:
- Pronunciation of some words can be iffy
- Unused minutes don’t carry over to your next month
Alli AI – Best AI website optimizing tool
Capable of integrating with the majority of content management systems (CMSs), including WordPress, Alli AI makes dynamic SEO recommendations for your website. It’s simple – you add a piece of encrypted code to your site and the tool starts making suggestions via its dashboard.
Assuming you approve its suggested changes, the tool automatically makes them for you, dealing with any coding that needs to take place in the process. Its AI is always keeping track of search engine algorithm changes, too, allowing it to adapt its suggestions based on the changes that Google, Bing, and others make.
Pros:
- Dynamic SEO suggestions tailored to your website
- No coding skills required
- Offers advice for pages you could add to your website
Cons:
- The dashboard can feel a little clunky
- Not all of its suggestions are effective, forcing human oversight
AgentGPT – Best AI-powered agent
AgentGPT is a powerful business AI tool because it gives you an autonomous agent you can deploy across websites and various business platforms. It’s simple, too. Creating your agent only requires you to give it a name and a goal – such as planning trips to other countries – and the tool takes it from there.
Though autonomous, the tool is at its best when working collaboratively with a human operator. Based on your prompts, it can conduct web research and even come up with snippets of coding you can use when developing apps or your website.
Pros:
- Versatile enough to handle most research tasks
- Exceptionally quick goal-handling
- Runs in your browser with minimal fuss
Cons:
- Can only handle one goal, or task, at a time
- Sometimes delivers incorrect content
Bricabrac – Best AI app creation suite
Any company that needs a mobile app may be put off by the need to hire people who understand coding. Bricabrac solves that problem by automating the app creation process using text-based commands inputted by the user – no coding required.
The platform quickly generates an app based on your description, which you can then tweak with further text commands to shore up its operation and user interface. When done, you can share your app via Bricabrac’s built-in hosting and export it to your own platform so it’s ready to release via your website or a relevant app store.
Pros:
- Near instant mobile app generation
- There’s no lock-in so you can do whatever you like with your apps
- The free plan allows you to generate six apps per month
Cons:
- Fairly expensive paid plan starting at $68 per month
- Sometimes gets confused with complex user instructions
Fireflies – Best AI meeting summarizer
Having raised around $19 million in investment funding to date, Fireflies has the financial muscle behind it to deliver an impressive offering. The tool is built for meetings, incorporating meeting summarization, transcription, and search tools so your company’s important discussions don’t get lost in the ether.
Its strengths in these areas have led to it being used by over 100,000 major brands, including Uber and Nike, and it’s even able to “listen” to video and audio, which it transcribes in a matter of minutes. Integration to popular meeting apps is also supported – Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams support is built into the package.
Pros:
- Easy to use and easy to integrate into your meeting software
- Fast transcription generation
- Real-time speech-to-text transcription tools
Cons:
- Transcripts are not always with a worry-free accuracy
- Unable to make physical recordings of meeting video
FAQS about the best business AI tools
Is it worth it for my business to invest in AI tools?
Given the time savings AI tools can deliver, the monthly investments usually required tend to pay for themselves in terms of saved labor. For instance, HubSpot reports that sales teams that use AI tools to help with manual tasks, such as prospecting, can save up to four hours per day – plenty of time that can be spent speaking to customers rather than dealing with paperwork.
Can my business be competitive without AI?
It can – a good product will always be a strong selling point – but you’ll likely find your operating costs are higher than companies that don’t leverage AI. It’s in lowering costs that business owners tend to find their reason for using AI. Remember the stat at the beginning of the article. A staggering 80% of retail outlets intend to incorporate AI into their workflows because it’ll streamline their operations and save them money.
Can I run business AI tools without human oversight?
Right now, taking humans out of the equation entirely isn’t recommended. AI is still in its formative stages and many of the tools highlighted here don’t deliver 100% perfect outputs. Casting a human eye over what they deliver is essential simply to ensure you’re not delivering content or tools that contain faults to your customers.
