Where could AI fit into my business?

How we identify the areas of your business where AI could make an immediate impact

AI is a fast-moving field, innovation is coming thick and fast.

You may ask yourself: Where could AI fit into my business?

But knowing where to start with AI can be a challenge. While it is tempting to pick up a tool and see where you might apply it, we suggest a different approach.

We can help you examine your current business model and identify areas where AI will make a difference.

DeeperThanBlue’s SORT model

Using our SORT model, we profile each of your existing business functions to identify current activities which require you to Synthesise information, Optimise key resources, perform Routine activity and Triage response.

AI initiatives with immediate impact typically fall into three areas: Engagement and Personalisation, Insight and Analytics, and Process Automation. Using these as a filter helps us explore how AI can enhance, support, or replace certain activities. 

This approach has helped us to identify several initial generic candidates. Every business is different, but these ideas might spark some thoughts about your own business. 

1. Invoice processing (Routine)
   By allowing AI to extract relevant information from invoices using optical character recognition, you can streamline invoice processing and automate approval workflows. This will lead to faster payment cycles and improved cashflow. 
2. Inventory Management (Synthesis)
   This is particularly useful where stock is held across multiple sites and different systems are used for stock control and order management. As well as optimising inventory levels by predicting demand, AI can be used to evaluate restocking requirements across the entire business. 
3. Expert Systems (Synthesis)
   Ingesting technical materials, product information and user manuals into a large language model allows an AI assistant to work alongside your staff to access relevant information in a timely manner to respond to questions, undertake maintenance work and offer product recommendations. 
4. Data Governance (Routine)
   AI can automate data governance tasks, improving data quality by identifying gaps and anomalies. This ensures that businesses have reliable data for decision-making and compliance. AI algorithms can analyse vast amounts of data across an organisation’s systems, including structured and unstructured data before automatically classifying and tagging the data for future access and discoverability and automatic enforcement of data governance policies. 
5. Risk Assessments (Triage, Synthesis)
   Giving your LLM access to historical incident data, information about potential hazards and recommended mitigations makes it possible for AI to produce thorough risk assessments based on outline process information provided by the user. 
6. Product Recommendations (Synthesis)
   Using a series of prompts and responses, an AI assistant will generate content tailored to individual preferences, thereby increasing engagement and sales. 
7. Workforce Mobilisation (Optimise, Triage)
   Where a business faces staffing issues at short notice, because of sickness for example, or public emergency, AI can be used to contact replacements or mobilise specially trained staff in a timely manner, rather than relying on contacting people individually. 
8. Recruitment and Talent Sourcing (Routine)
   Popular jobs vacancies can receive tens, if not hundreds, of applications, giving the recruiter the headache of sifting through all the CVs or applications forms. AI can streamline the recruitment process by automating candidate screening and matching, reducing time-to-hire and improving the quality of hires. 
9. Content Production (Optimise)
   There are many tools available that can help with the production of content for communications and marketing, including the generation of text, images and video, taking basic ideas and creating original and relevant content. 
10. Customer Relationship Management (Synthesis)
    All businesses want to give their customers the best possible service. AI tools can help to personalise interactions with customers, improve service quality and predict customer needs. By drawing together different aspects of a customer’s interaction with a company, your staff could have in-depth insight at their fingertips allowing them to understand a customer more fully. 

As we said above, the applications of AI don’t end there, but this list might highlight areas of your business where AI could be beneficial.

Ask yourself again: Where could AI fit into my business? If you have AI integration ideas, but don’t know where to start, we’d love to talk you through the potential use cases and get you started on your AI journey. Fill out the form below or use the chat function on this page.