Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are taking the business world by storm. As a Nigerian business owner, you cannot afford to be left behind in applying AI to your business operations. Whether on mobile devices, office equipment, or factory machines, AI can be used to promote business operations for ambitious results.

As a small business owner in Nigeria, you should use AI to solve major business problems. Among other cognitive technologies, AI can be used to improve business processes, boost productivity, automate routine activities, enhance employee efficiencies, save operational costs, and guarantee quicker profits.

Whether on mobile devices or computer systems, AI can be used across agriculture, cybersecurity, content production, customer support, and fraud prevention among other industries. As a technology-compliant business owner, you can use different AI models and major chatbot alternatives to meet your business needs.

^{How You Can Use AI To Boost Your Small Business}

 

Given that Nigerians love to leverage business technologies, the following are some of the ways you can deploy AI to achieve your business objectives in record time:

1. Create Blog Posts For Your Websites

If your small business relies on given websites for revenue, then you would need constant content to update the websites. Paying freelance writers to create blog posts and unique articles for your business websites can eat into your finances, but you can use AI to save costs. OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard can write well-researched and well-formatted articles on any given topics for your websites.

ChatGPT and Bard or any other AI alternatives can craft any topical content for you within minutes. You only need to enter the topics you want it to write and the digital tool will create your articles instantly. You can refine the topics and enter targeted keywords to obtain good blog posts and articles that can be posted on your websites.

These AI tools can save you thousands of naira monthly, depending on the volumes of content you require per month for your websites. For context, if you pay a writer N3,000 to write one article and you require five articles per week, this will amount to N60,000 per month. If you have two freelancers on your payroll, that means you can save N120,000 monthly simply by using AI.

So AI saves time and money while giving you great articles that require little to no tweaking whatsoever. And don’t forget, it can be used to write personalized email campaigns.

2. Create Spectacular Videos And Photos

Generative AI can be used to create stunning videos and images for your business needs. If you have been paying a graphic designer to create images that promote your products and services, AI can take over the job easily. This digital tool can also create videos that can be used for digital adverts for use on social media and on TVs.

AI can save you thousands of naira that could have been paid to a graphic designer or video editor for video content. In fact, the technology can also create voice-over in any language and voice in your videos, further saving you money that could have been paid to voice-over artistes. To create outstanding videos and graphic images that tell your business story and promote your objectives, use AI for that cutting-edge difference.

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3. Cybersecurity And Fraud Detection

Many online businesses face cybersecurity threats from scammers and hackers. Nigerian businesses are not exempted from the threats of cyber-terrorists who work clandestinely to infiltrate computer systems, steal company data, breach customer information, and transfer company funds.

AI can be deployed to prevent cyber threats and boost fraud management. While cybercriminals work tirelessly and even deploy powerful digital tools to steal business data and steal funds, AI has the capability to prevent fraud, create breach alerts, and thwart the efforts of cybercriminals. This emerging technology automates threat detection and responds to digital threats automatically without any human prompts.

If you do not use AI for your business’ cybersecurity – you risk hackers and scammers stealing your company’s products, customers, and funds. AI will help with threat detection and response, security monitoring, and bot prevention in real-time – safeguarding your business against financial loss and structural breakdown.

4. Automated Customer Service

Here in Nigeria, have you observed that companies make automated calls to customers for one important reason or another? For instance, if you call MTN or Glo for a particular transaction, a machine talking like a real customer care representative may hold a meaningful conversation with you and help you out with your queries. This chatbot frees up human service reps to do other things.

Also, banks also have AI technologies that act like real customer care reps. If you contact your bank through any of its digital platforms, you may be having a live chat with a chatbot that helps out with your queries. The chatbot may handle things like financial transactions, personal queries, and anything you would have needed going into a banking hall for.

The use of USSD by banks and other companies is made possible by AI. So do you operate a business where you deal with lots of customers in Nigeria? Businesses like online loan companies or product sales and marketing? You can use AI to answer customers’ administrative and technical questions, attend to customers in various languages, and access self-help solutions.

5. Accounting And Payroll Management

If you run a small business in Nigeria, you definitely carry out accounting procedures that can be done with artificial intelligence. This digital technology can also be used by large corporations in the country to manage accounting and bookkeeping processes. Any data entry jobs related to staff payments, tax audits, fraud prevention, product inventory, account reconciliation, and payment invoicing among others can be done with relevant AI technology.

You can free up time for your accountants and make their jobs easier by implementing AI technology in your company. This will make your accounts officers more efficient at what they do, and it will also limit or eliminate financial errors that could bankrupt your business. AI is intuitive and able to detect financial loopholes or mismanagement before they occur, so you must have it to protect your business operations.

6. Legal Services

If you are a lawyer or work in a law firm, you can use AI to simplify your jobs. Law firms or legal departments in big corporations deal with large volumes of legal data and documents. Attorneys or legal assistants spend long hours reviewing and analyzing data before they can help clients or meet their company’s objectives.

As a lawyer, instead of poring over huge volumes of law books for legal citations, you could use AI to pull up references in record time. Law students in the university or law schools can also use artificial intelligence to study various case laws or access the legal systems of various countries around the world.

To this end, AI can be used to draft legal documents, research law cases, and increase judicial efficiency with ease. Individuals interested in law can also use the technology to research and analyze law incidents, review contract obligations and language, automate legal documentation, and ensure judicial compliance in all respects of life.

7. Human Resource Management

If you have a number of employees and looking to hire more for your business, then the use of AI may be necessary. The digital technological tool is also important for managing employees and everything related to their welfare. It is also important for hiring, training, and evaluating the performance of staff to boost their jobs.

As a business owner in Nigeria, you can use AI to screen the CVs of job applicants. The technology can be used to eliminate bias in any recruitment process by highlighting applicants that only meet the eligibility criteria. Instead of manually reviewing hundreds of job applications, AI can pre-screen CVs or resumes and pick only the most qualified talents according to set criteria. This will enable the hiring team within the HR department to hire the best applicants for available roles.

Meanwhile, HR can also use artificial intelligence to identify the best-performing employees within an organization. They can equally use the tool to draw up training programmes for eligible staff based on identified needs. The HR department can also use AI to effectively measure training engagement and task completion rates among select employees.

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8. Enhanced Business Decisions

Businesses using artificial intelligence as part of their enterprise tools make better decisions. AI can analyze vast amounts of data on marketing trends, customer behaviour, product benefits, and competitors’ activities to arrive at the best business decisions. Just as a computer cannot make a mistake, AI can rarely make a mistake since it analyzes lots of data to make a decision.

Having used AI to hire the best talents, automate payroll systems, enhance cybersecurity, improve customer relations, create stunning articles and videos, as well as achieve legal victories, the technology is trusted to make business decisions that top management can rely upon. If all the data and variables are carefully computed, you can be sure that AI can help with the best business decisions.

Addressing Business Concerns Related To The Use of AI

If you had never used AI for business before, it is normal to be sceptical at the initial stages, but you can be assured that the technology may be the next best thing for your business expansions. However, following are some clarifications you may want to know about the use of the technology:

• Is AI free to use?

There are different types of AI technologies – there are free and paid versions. Some free versions have paid tiers that users can upgrade to, and some paid versions require upfront payments. Examples of free AI tools are Bard, ChatGPT, and Ellie (you can upgrade to paid versions); and examples of paid versions include Shopify Magic and Notion AI.

• Can AI be used offline?

Most AI tools can only be used online while connected to the internet. It is not clear whether there are offline versions at this point, but this is very doubtful. AI must connect to remote servers to pull up queried data or perform complex digital tasks, which is why it can usually only be used online.

• Can AI replace human jobs?

When factory robots were first launched many years ago, there were fears that they would replace factory workers. This turned out to be false. With the launch of autonomous or self-driving cars, the fear that normal cars would become history is misplaced – because self-driving cars can never take the place of human-controlled vehicles.

In the same vein, AI was not developed to replace company employees. Some jobs may become redundant with the implementation of AI, but it will also create new career opportunities for some people. So the technology will complement employees to boost their efficiency rather than threaten their jobs. But in some cases, it is possible that freelancers may no longer be needed.

• How is AI implemented for business?

Implementing AI for business is not difficult at all. Depending on your business niche and specific requirements, you may need to learn how a particular AI tool works to maximize its functions. You may take short online courses to know how to use these types of AI best, especially where complex functions on deep learning or machine learning are required.

But in most cases, AI does not require any special training to use. They are highly intuitive and user-friendly, and they can even help you to maximize their capabilities better. Imagine a machine teaching you how to use it to meet your peculiar needs.

• Using AI on computers and smartphones, which is best?

Some AI can only be used on computers while others can be used on both computers and smartphones. To begin to use some AI on your smartphone, you must register on the AI platform using a computer. And many others have been integrated into smartphone apps for easy access and use. Depending on your personal or business needs, you must decide which one is best for you – using AI on your computer or on your smartphone.