ChatGPT is likely the first thing that comes to mind when you hear AI. However, other exciting AI tools can help you in your business with various tasks, ranging from content creation, video editing, product photography editing, and business organization.
In this article, we’ll examine 7 free AI tools you can use to carry out different tasks in your small business and grow faster. Let’s get started.
7 Must-have AI Tools for Business Owners
Here are 7 must-have AI-powered tools for small business owners to grow:
1. Perplexity: Content creation
Perplexity is a generative AI tool like ChatGPT that can generate content ideas, social media content, content calendars, emails, articles, etc, with a simple prompt. Unlike ChatGPT, Perplexity always links to its sources of information on the internet that you can check to verify any response it gives.
With perplexity, you can create tons of content from social media content, reel ideas, video scripts, email content, etc. Its “related queries” section is also helpful to get additional answers to your initial prompt.
Pros
It sources its answers from different sources and cites them, making it reliable
It has a user-friendly interface which makes it easy to use
It allows you to ask follow-up questions alongside your initial search.
It gives multi-layered responses to prompts with detailed answers you didn’t know you needed.
Cons
It sometimes adds extra details to answers that aren’t always correct.
It doesn’t have as much data as a search engine like Google
It sometimes gives repeated responses
Pricing
Standard- $0
Professional — $20
Enterprise — Custom
2. Grammarly: Content creation and editing
I have been using Grammarly for about 5 years now, and it’s been a great experience using it to proofread my content before a human reader sees it. From correcting basic grammar to suggesting spellings, and now, the ability to generate text with up to 100 AI prompts, it is the perfect tool you need to create and edit content for your business.
Be it captions, video, or audio scripts, Grammarly can help you polish your writing, ensuring your content is error-free, thus promoting trust with your customers.
Pros
It gives real-time corrections on your content.
It’s simple to use, once the integration is added to your device.
Helps you stick to a variation of English, either British or American English by flagging inconsistencies.
It can be customized to your preferred language and allows you to add words to your dictionary so that they don’t get flagged.
Cons
It sometimes gives corrections that may change the meaning of what you intended.
Its autocorrect feature can be annoying sometimes.
Pricing
Free: $0
Pro: $12
Enterprise: Custom
3. Capcut: Video editing
While Capcup is not an AI video editing tool, it has AI features that make it acceptable in this list. Capcut is not a new tool to most small business owners, and it has loads of free editing features such as video effects, transition effects, overlays, filters, adjustments, stickers, etc.
Its Adjust feature allows you to adjust your video’s saturation, brightness, contrast, brilliance, etc. to give your videos more vibrance and colour. Capcut also allows you to export your video in varying resolutions and frame rates to suit different social media platforms and quality.
Pros
It is available on mobile and desktop.
It is beginner-friendly and easy to use.
It is linked by default to TikTok
Cons
It only works in portrait orientation
Most of its advanced features are now paid
Pricing
Free: $0
Capcut Pro: #9,900 (For Nigerian users)
4. Buffer: Social media management
Buffer is an AI-powered social media management tool that can help you with social media activities like creating captions and content from the inbuilt AI Assistant. It also contains a landing page builder, a drag-and-drop feature for posting content and images on social media, a content layout that helps you visualize your content schedule, etc.
It allows you to schedule up to 10 social media posts at a time for up to 3 social media channels on its free plan. So, for a small business owner on a budget, it is a great option to get started with.
Pros
It is user-friendly and easy to use.
The free plan has all the features you need to succeed on social media
It has reporting features to get feedback on how your content is performing
It helps you customize your content to fit different social media platform
Cons
It has limited social listening tools
It can randomly disconnect from your social media pages, thus making you lose your content.
Pricing
Free: $0
Essentials: $6
Team: $12
Agency: $120
5. Pebblely: Product Photography
Do you find it difficult to take good pictures of your product, either due to the low quality of your phone camera, lack of picture props, etc? Well, that will stop being a headache with this AI tool that can take your product photography game to 100.
With Pebblely, you can edit and create stunning pictures of your products with minimal editing skills, and its background removal feature helps you to create multiple product pictures in different backgrounds. It also has 40 premade background themes, a 90-day storage for inactive users, and it produces consistently high-quality pictures you will love, all on the free plan.
Pros
It can handle bulk image processing.
It uses AI to automatically adjust the colour and lighting of your product pictures to make them better.
They provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the tool.
It is mobile-friendly, so, you can easily use it on your mobile device.
Cons
Its advanced features are limited.
It can take a while to understand how to fully use it.
Pricing
Free: $0
Basic: $25
Pro: $32
6. Manychat: Lead generation on Instagram
I’m sure you’ve seen posts on Instagram where you are asked to type a keyword in the comment section to get a link or resource in your DM. A tool like Manychat is what does that automated work. With Manychat, you can get quality leads on social media, increase sales, and be active in your DM 24/7, without always being on your phone.
It can also be used on WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, and it is integrated with email marketing tools like Paypal, and Mailchimp, and other tools like Google Sheets and Zapier, helping you to get qualified leads who need your product or service and convert them to customers.
Pros
It is easy to use and set up.
It is available on desktop and mobile.
It has analytics and reporting features, to help you measure how your campaign performs.
Cons
It is not yet integrated with other social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
There are limitations in customizing their templates to suit your brand style.
Pricing:
Free: $0
Pro: $15
Elite: Custom
7. Notion AI: Productivity and task organization
With Notion AI, you can organize your entire life and save time. No kidding! The tool contains features that help you organize your work, collaborate with others, take meeting notes, create a knowledge base for your business, where you create answers to Frequently Asked Questions for customers, etc.
Notion AI can also serve as a source to document written products, such as ebooks, guides, checklists, etc. It also helps in project management tasks such as calendar management, assigning tasks, monitoring project progress, etc. This helps you save time, and money and improves your productivity level.
Pros
It allows you to create unlimited pages to organize your business, personal life, etc.
It has lots of in-built templates to use for your business
You can use it with other tools like Slack, Google Drive, etc.
Cons
It can be a bit difficult to learn and use at the beginning.
It can become slow and unresponsive when handling a large amount of data.
Pricing
Free: $0
Plus: $10
Business: $15
Enterprise: Custom
Grow the AI Way
AI is not the future, it is now. If you don’t adapt yourself, you will be left behind in no time.
From content creation, task management, video creation, product photography, etc, AI can help you achieve so much in less time, helping you grow faster.
At Triift Africa, we partner with your business to access collateral-free business loans, resources, and community to take your business from struggling to thriving. If this article was helpful, kindly give us some claps to boost our morale to continue creating great content like this to help your business grow.
