In early 2016, the creators of Siri revealed their latest artificial intelligence assistant, Viv, meant to be the the intelligent interface for everything. Viv goes beyond Siri’s ability to pull answers from basic web searches and answers complex questions that more closely resemble how people talk. It’s no doubt that engineers are always looking for ways to create the most versatile artificial intelligence. Now, you can find AI assistants to take care of your shopping, travel plans and much more.
We asked ten entrepreneurs how they’re using AI assistants to make their businesses run smoother to learn more about the power of these useful devices. Check out their answers below and get ready for smarter artificial intelligence than ever before:
Schedule Meetings
Amy, or x.ai, is an artificial intelligence tool that schedules meetings. “She” can be white-labeled to appear as a company employee and will communicate seamlessly with clients over email to schedule appointments. The best part? She takes you off emails entirely and the meetings appear (magically!) in your calendar. It’s a simple way to eliminate a routine annoyance.
– Brittany Hodak of ZinePak
Translate Your Voice to Text
I cofounded two data science companies that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to classify data and make custom recommendations, so AI is critical to my business. I use voice-to-text technology on both my iPhone and MacBook, and it’s pretty robust. This saves me a ton of time on a daily basis.
– Karan Chaudhry of Comnplus
Set Reminders
You know when you’re in the middle of a task and, all of a sudden, you remember something you need to do later? This is when I find my AI assistant to be most useful. It’s extremely convenient to ask my AI assistant to remind me to complete a certain task in an hour and not have to worry about writing it down, manually setting a reminder, or even forgetting about it altogether.
– Dave Nevogt of Hubstaff
Craft Your Email Responses
I still spend more time than I should composing emails, but Google’s AI has helped me curb this habit when it comes to replies. A component of Inbox by Gmail, Smart Reply intelligently suggests three responses to each email. They’re always pithy and usually accurate.
– Sam Saxton of Paragon Stairs
Report Marketing and Sales Metrics
Statsbot on Slack pulls together marketing and sales metrics from various sources (Google Analytics, Salesforce and internal tools) on a daily or hourly basis. You can also ask the bot questions like, “From where are most of my web traffic today coming?” or “What were my sales yesterday from Canada?” This saves me time previously spent manually pulling metrics.
– Adelyn Zhou of TOPBOTS
Purchase Office Supplies via Amazon
I’m in love with Amazon’s AI assistant, Alexa, for a lot of reasons, but one of the things I love most about it is that I can simply use a voice command like “Alexa, buy black HP 8715 printer ink” to purchase supplies for my office. Alexa is connected to Amazon Prime, so my ink arrives with free two-day shipping. Alexa saves me considerable time and allows me to be more productive and happy at work.
– Kristopher Jones of LSEO
Help With Basic Customer Service Support
I’ve used chat bots to help me handle some of the basic questions and concerns that come into our website. In this way, the support team can just deal with the more complicated issues and get to those customers sooner.
– Murray Newlands of Due
Make Travel Arrangements
I’m a big fan of Google Inbox’s ability to gather travel documents and extract the useful information from emails so I can see what I need at a glance. I’ve also been playing with Google Trips, which is a dedicated app that builds on what Inbox can do but adds useful features like itineraries and points of interest.
– Vik Patel of Future Hosting
Deliver Briefings of Your Daily News
It’s critical for entrepreneurs and innovators to stay in tune with what’s going on in the news, but I don’t have the time to read all the various news sources on a daily basis. That’s why I love using Amazon’s Alexa for a daily news briefing. In about 90 seconds, I get highlights of all the most important news in politics, business, entertainment and world affairs.
– Obinna Ekezie of Wakanow
Filter Your Emails
I get hundreds of emails every day. I don’t need to see most of them immediately, so I use smart tools like Unroll.me and Google Inbox to filter the chaff and make sure the emails I really need to see bubble up to the top. Without AI filtering, email would be a huge time-sink and much less useful. With my current setup, I never miss important sales and support emails, and I never see the junk.
– Justin Blanchard of ServerMania Inc.
Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.