With the rapid emergence of so many advanced AI tools, Artificial Intelligence has become an inescapable topic in the business world.
But even with AI’s current ubiquity and accessibility, it’s not always clear how your business can actually start leveraging this technology in a practical way.
That’s why in this post, we’re going to quickly show you five different ways any company can begin using AI right now.
We’ll be covering a wide range of tools, from the extremely popular ChatGPT to newer and lesser known options you won’t want to miss, so stick around to the end.
Most of these tools offer free trials or affordable plans, so no matter what your budget is, there’s something for you in this list.
Let’s get started!
Ask a Chatbot for help on any task
AI chatbots are great for quickly performing a wide range of tasks. They’re the perfect resource when you need to get familiar with an unfamiliar subject, draft or revise some text, or even analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a new idea.
You could even ask the chatbot to assume the identity of your ideal customer and explain how your product or service could be improved.
Not only do you typically get reliable answers, but it’s also much quicker than wasting a busy colleague’s time with the same request. If you have any idea you want to explore, or any challenge you’re stuck on, just turn to a friendly chatbot to jumpstart your creativity.
AI Chatbots you can use right now
There are several options out there for general purpose AI chatbots. Here are three of the easiest and most effective chatbots that you can try today.
ChatGPT by OpenAI
Of course, there’s always ChatGPT. You’ve certainly heard of it by now, and you’ve probably tried it out firsthand to see how shockingly effective it is at holding conversation, brainstorming, writing code, and even generating images.
Claude by Anthropic
Claude, by Anthropic, offers a very similar experience to ChatGPT, but its free versions are generally considered to be technically superior to ChatGPT’s free version, GPT3.5.
However, the premium GPT4 still edges out Claude’s own paid option when looking at technical benchmarks.
Microsoft Copilot
Alternatively, if you’d like to integrate your AI chat right into your searches, then Microsoft's Copilot will be an ideal choice for you.
Copilot can help you get answers on the web much faster by synthesizing several pages of results into a single, concise response.
However, it’s only available in two browsers: Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
AI Chatbot pricing
All of these AI tools offer free plans, but you can also get premium subscriptions to Claude or ChatGPT for $20/mo if you want to unlock premium features and guarantee access even when the app is busy.
Whichever Chatbot you choose, using it will be very easy. Just ask any question that’s on your mind, and get an instant response.
You’d be surprised at how much they can help you to clear writer’s block, get quick answers, and solve technical problems.
Set up an automated prompt
If you find yourself asking an AI for the same task or the same document repeatedly, then you may want to set up an automation to run the prompt for you with the click of a button.
For instance, you might want to set up an automation that uses AI to generate social media posts from a blog title and introduction paragraph.
Alternatively, you could configure an AI automation that extracts key data points you need from a long meeting transcript or recording.
How automated AI prompts work
There are a few different tools and methods you can use to automate your AI prompts, but they all boil down to the same idea.
Instead of entering a prompt into a chatbot conversation window, you’ll preconfigure a prompt that can be filled in with a few variables and sent to OpenAI’s API.
Automate AI prompts with Airtable
One of the easiest ways to automate AI prompts is by using Airtable.
If you have an enterprise plan, you’ll gain access to the AI Assist field type, which will let you create a prompt by combining the contents of various fields in your table.
Then, you’ll get the response in a separate field of the same table.
You can check out our tutorial here for information about using Airtable’s AI assist field.
Automate an AI prompt with Zapier or Make
If you don’t already have an Enterprise account for Airtable, then it will be much cheaper to set up the automations with tools like Zapier and Make instead.
Zapier and Make are no-code automation tools that let you automate thousands of actions in popular web apps, including sending prompts to OpenAI.
They both have free plans, as well as affordable paid options that begin at around $10/mo for Make or $20/mo for Zapier.
To get started, check out our tutorial for automating OpenAI prompts with Zapier, or our similar tutorial about Make.
Creating an automated prompt involves a bit more work than just using a Chatbot, but it’s a great way to make your most common AI tasks more consistent and reliable. With automated prompts, you can elevate AI from an ad-hoc improvised solution into a fully integrated part of your workflows.
Create custom, royalty-free graphics with AI
AI Language models like ChatGPT often get the most attention due to their easy accessibility, but AI is not just limited to creating text.
With models like Dall-E and tools like Midjourney, you can use AI to create detailed graphics in any style with a simple prompt.
AI image generation can be a quick and cheap way to obtain a custom illustration, icon, or other graphic when your project simply doesn’t have the budget for a human artist or illustrator.
When to use AI-generated images
Note: the following is NOT legal advice. Consult with your own legal team before using AI images in your project.
Although the legal details of AI are still being worked out, currently, any graphics generated by AI are not protected by copyright, and you won’t have to pay any royalties to use the images commercially.
However, this also means that anyone else can theoretically reuse those images as well, so we wouldn’t recommend using AI to generate key aspects of your brand, like your logo or a mascot.
AI image generation is better suited to creating one-off graphics for specific pages on your site, for a newsletter, or for a blog.
Getting started with AI images
To begin making graphics with AI, you can just go to Midjourney.com and sign up for the beta. You’ll get a free trial that includes about 25 prompts to get started. After that, paid plains begin at $10/mo.
Alternatively, ChatGPT plus includes Dall-E image generation with its $20/mo subscription fee.
With both apps, you’ll find that sending image prompts can be a little more complicated than going back and forth with text alone. However, after you get the hang of it, you’ll be designing awesome graphics in no time.
Use new AI features in your current software
Everything we’ve highlighted so far has been a standalone tool, but many apps are actually integrating AI directly into their existing software.
Many of the tools you likely use every day are creating fantastic ways to streamline and enhance your daily work with AI. As just a few examples, you can see new AI features in Notion, Arc Browser, and Zoom.
Use Notion AI to quickly transform and generate text
In Notion, there’s a new AI assistant integrated seamlessly into your pages and content.
You can see more detail in our Notion AI tutorial, but in essence, Notion AI lets you simply highlight text to send a related AI prompt, or open up a familiar chat window to submit your request.
All of the AI answers are output directly onto your current Notion page, and they include all of Notion’s native styling options.
Notion AI costs $10 per user per month on top of your existing Notion plan.
Get AI answers about any web page with Arc
In the web browser Arc, you can now use an AI-assisted “find” function powered by Anthropic.
Just type cmd + F and ask the AI anything you’d like about the current page you’re visiting.
It will then give you an answer based on the page’s contents, making it faster than ever to get the information you’re looking for.
Arc and its AI functions are free to use, but it’s currently only available on Mac and iOS devices.
Summarize and enhance your meetings with the Zoom AI Companion
Zoom’s new features use AI to summarize meetings, add chapters to meeting recordings, give feedback on your presentation skills, and more.
The Zoom AI companion is included with any of Zoom’s paid plans, which start at $16 per user per month.
This quick list is just scratching the surface. Hundreds of tools are building native AI features right now.
Check to see if the apps you’re using every day have added new AI functions. These features will help you get your work done faster and more effectively with barely any learning curve at all, since they’re built right into the apps you already rely on.
Create a custom AI chatbot for your company
Finally, the last recommendation that we wanted to discuss today is to create a custom chatbot for your company.
These chatbots will train an AI on any unique data that you have about your business. This could be your website, blogs, case studies, videos, or any other material you have on hand.
In addition to uploading data en masse, you can also provide a specific directive to further refine the chatbot’s behavior and tone.
You could create a chatbot that responds to general inquiries, or make one that serves a more specific purpose like helping a new team member navigate your employee handbook.
AI chatbots are a rapidly growing service, with many companies emerging over the last year that specialize in producing them.
Build a chatbot trained on your company’s data with Chatbase
For instance, there’s Chatbase. Built on OpenAI, Chatbase integrates neatly into any website with a simple embed code snippet, making it easy to answer any questions a prospective customer might have.
Create chatbots, automation and more with Stack AI or Respell
If you’re looking to go beyond just creating a bot that answers questions from clients and leads, you may want to consider a platform like Stack AI or Respell.
While they both allow you to create a Chatbot, each platform also promises wide-ranging support for workflow automation with AI tools.
Build an internal chatbot with a custom GPT
And as always, you can also turn to the reigning king of AI, ChatGPT.
In a recent update, OpenAI added the ability to customize ChatGPT’s behavior with a user’s own data and instructions, creating custom GPTs for nearly any purpose.
However, for the time being, there’s no easy way to embed a Custom GPT into your own website. If you want to create a seamless experience for your users, the other software we’ve mentioned will likely be a better choice.
But if your use-cases are primarily internal, a custom GPT is a reliable option
Creating a custom chatbot will generally be a bit more difficult and pricey than the other strategies we’ve discussed, with many of these apps starting at around $100/mo or more for a team plan.
However, getting a good chatbot up and running can save you countless hours on fielding basic inquiries, and can provide your users with more consistent answers. If you want to get your customer interactions down to a science, an AI chatbot is the way to go.
Get ahead of the crowd with AI
Integrating AI into your company is not just about adopting the latest trend in tech. It's about reshaping how you work, enhancing your team’s creativity, and making all your operations more efficient.
As AI continues to evolve, its potential applications in the business world are practically limitless. Use the techniques we’ve covered in this article to start embracing AI today and stay ahead of the curve and your competition.
If you’d like to learn more about optimizing your workflows with AI and automation, be sure to check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
