The pandemic introduced a wide array of business challenges across multiple levels of the economy. From supply chain shortages to overwhelmed healthcare facilities to businesses struggling to execute digital transformation in their daily operation to shift from in-person operations to including eCommerce platforms, there hasn’t been a single industry segment that hasn’t been impacted. These challenges have been exacerbated by the fact that the ability of businesses to retain staff has also been destabilized. While agile business practices were on the rise before the COVID-19 pandemic and the concept of doing more with less isn’t new, it has become especially prevalent for small to medium businesses (SMBs) and startups that are structured organizationally around minimized staffing and maximized focus on revenue generation in the beginning to support future growth. The pandemic and the post-COVID-19 recovery period have changed the staffing game significantly. Combined, the layoffs and role consolidation resulting from quarantine and social distancing measures throughout COVID and the Great Resignation—what experts are calling the massive number of employees who have left their jobs seeking better pay or new careers throughout 2021 and 2022—businesses are struggling under massive labor shortages in 2022.
UpCity wanted to provide more insight into the mitigation measures and solutions to the labor shortages being leveraged by successful SMBs and B2B service providers in our community, so we partnered with Pollfish to survey 600 United States-based SMBs and employees. Through our survey, we found that many small business owners are leveraging AI-powered tools in 2022 more than in the past to bolster their ability to meet the needs of their customers.
Our survey findings provided us with the data necessary to discuss the following topics:
- Business Sizes and Revenues
- The Pros and Cons of AI Tools
- AI Tool 2022 Usage
Data on its own doesn’t tell the whole story, so we’ve included insight and anecdotal commentary on how small business owners and employees are leveraging AI tools across multiple industries and disciplines beyond North America from our international audience to mitigate staffing shortages while they leverage other strategies to grow and retain new staff to fill gaps in 2022.
Business Sizes and Revenues
51% of small businesses have been using AI tools for the last 1-5 years
Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven tools are not new forms of technology, but AI adoption and integration of various types of software platforms have been rampant over the last five years. AI tools are designed to maximize the effectiveness of automation in software applications and provide improved analytical and predictive capabilities for data-driven software platforms. In marketing and advertising applications, AI can be used to help anticipate user behaviors and craft better marketing strategies to meet their needs, analyze and provide insight into data, segment users into unique cohorts for targeted marketing efforts, and task automation. Over the last decade, software platforms have come to play an increasing role in marketing to ease the burden of such complex and time-consuming tasks. With software designed over the last five years, it’s hard to find tools that don’t integrate some form of AI.
15% – Less than 1 year
51% – 1-5 years
23% – 6-9 years
11% – 10+ years
53% of B2B small businesses first started using AI tools as a result of the labor shortage. Meanwhile, 40% of B2C small businesses increased their existing use of AI tools once the shortage began
Throughout the pandemic and resulting labor shortage, marketing, and advertising agencies adopted more software tools to allow their teams to operate faster and more efficiently. Agencies have had to increase their efficiency not only due to the staffing shortages but also because the economy has started to recover as quarantine and social distancing measures have been lifted and agencies have had to meet the needs of an increasing number of clients with a static or even diminishing number of employees. In the absence of skilled or willing staff to fill gaps, it follows that businesses would make up the shortcoming in staffing with tools that simulate the output the missing staff would generate. AI-driven tools such as chatbots, email campaign management platforms, and other applications are increasingly being added to technology stacks industry-wide to handle repetitive tasks, leaving live staff available to cultivate and convert leads.
When we look at our respondents relative to the type of services and products they provide, it makes sense that retailers in B2C businesses, where the Great Resignation has had a crippling impact, would increase their use of automation if they were already using it, but that there would also be a higher percentage of businesses that utilize AI at a steady rate regardless of staffing levels. For B2B service providers, conversely, much of the face-to-face customer engagement shifted to online channels, and shortages in sales teams mean that B2B focused agencies would need to not only increase the usage of AI tools but also more firms would find themselves needing the benefit of their use to remain competitive.
B2B
53% – My company has first started using AI tools as a result of the labor shortage
32% – My company has increased our existing use of AI tools since the labor shortage
15% – The labor shortage doesn’t have anything to do with our use of AI tools
B2C
36% – My company has first started using AI tools as a result of the labor shortage
40% – My company has increased our existing use of AI tools since the labor shortage
25% – The labor shortage doesn’t have anything to do with our use of AI tools
The Pollfish survey helped our team to explore how other business owners have been leveraging AI technology and we pulled some of their insights here:
“I have been using AI tools ever since I launched my business two years ago. I was a digital marketer prior to being a full-time professional gardener, so my exposure to the digital industry gave me some idea of how AI can make my life easier as a startup business owner. I had to employ AI tools in more areas of my company recently so that my small remote team of seven can cope with the increasing workload and competition. While my team size remained the same, I had to leverage AI assistance in some areas to make adjustments to my team’s workload. It was important to me that my team was not being overextended and at risk of being burnt out.”
—Jason White, CEO, All About Gardening
“AI is at the centre of everything that we do. It is fundamental to the running of our organization, not only for the present but, of course, for the future too. The use of AI allows us to more efficiently analyze and manage large quantities of data with added flexibility. AI is integral to the analytical skills we develop in our own teams and train others in, including data analysis, machine learning, and advanced data engineering.”
—Pohan Lin, Senior Web Marketing and Localizations Manager, Databricks
“We’ve been using AI tools for about two years now. We originally started using them to help with our data entry and analysis, but we quickly realized that they could do so much more. We now use AI tools for a variety of tasks, including customer service, marketing, and even cybersecurity. Overall, we’ve found that AI tools have been a huge help in making our business run more smoothly. Our usage didn’t necessarily change due to the recent labor challenges. Our usage of AI tools is with regard to our vision of a more technologically advanced workplace and to make the work of our people easier through the help of AI.”
—Luke Lee, CEO, Palaleather
“As a company that has been working remotely from the very beginning, we started integrating AI gradually over the past few years. And as a team of only four people, we’ve always depended on AI tools to help dedicate the team’s talents and skills to actual tasks that require human creativity, thinking, and abilities. But instead of increasing our team and risking labor shortages, we decided to grow our company by outsourcing, using freelancers, and turning to AI tools and solutions whenever possible.”
—Jordan Fabel, Founder, ApprovedCourse
35% of small businesses, regardless of revenue, had a monthly AI tools budget of $1,001-$5,000 both pre-COVID and now in 2022
The benefit of using AI tools is that they can often be scaled easily once they’ve been deployed, but often come with minimum costs per month or per year to access the tools fully. Therefore, with numbers showing an increase in the use of AI tools to be fair across the board, the data should and does show that revenue has little impact on how much brands are spending on those tools.
| Overall Monthly Pre-COVID Budget | |
|---|---|
| $100-$500 | 17% |
| $501-$1,000 | 26% |
| $1,001-$5,000 | 35% |
| $5,001+ | 16% |
| My business didn’t use AI tools pre-COVID | 6% |
| Overall Monthly 2022 Budget | |
|---|---|
| $100-$500 | 20% |
| $501-$1,000 | 30% |
| $1,001-$5,000 | 35% |
| $5,001+ | 16% |
| My business doesn’t currently use AI tools | 0% |
Breakdown by Revenue
ANNUAL REVENUE
| Annual Revenue | Monthly Pre-COVID Budget | Monthly 2022 Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Less than $500,000 | 43% – $100-$500 | 47% – $100-$500 |
| $500,000-$2M | 39% – $501-$1,000 | 42% – $501-$1,000 |
| $3M-$5M | 47% – $1,001-$5,000 | 42% – $1,001-$5,000 |
| $6M-$9M | 44% – $1,001-$5,000 | 55% – $1,001-$5,000 |
| $10M+ | 43% – $1,001-$5,000 | 39% – $1,001-$5,000 |
What businesses spend on AI tools monthly can greatly impact their overall ability to keep up with the competition in the modern economy, so as with the Pollfish data, we asked community respondents to our inquiry about their own spending on AI tools.
“When it comes to our AI tools budget, we pay about $1000-$1500 per month. Previously, we’d paid $1800 per month to an employee doing the same job as the AI tool we use now, so in a sense, we have saved money by using AI in our recruitment process.”
—Sharon Dylan, Co-Founder & Career Coach, Management Help LLC
“I spend about $500 per month on AI tools. This includes software licenses, cloud services, and employee training/support. I find that spending this amount allows me to stay ahead of the curve and keep up with the latest advancements in AI. It’s also important to note that not all tools are created equal. Some are more expensive than others, but they typically offer more features or greater performance. I try to stick with reputable brands that have a good reputation for quality and customer service. Before COVID, I would typically spend between $200 and $300 on artificial intelligence tools each month. I do not think COVID was the reason, however. It was mostly because our business grew.”
—Tomek Mlodzki, Co-Founder & CEO, PhotoAiD
“As we have a custom AI solution for our business, on average we spend about $10,000 on such tools per month. This budget for AI tools has changed from our budget before COVID. Before the virus, labor wasn’t a dire issue, but after the pandemic, things were lopsided, so we had to adjust accordingly. The budget also increased as we expanded our operations across the company.”
—Jason Ault, Real Estate Expert & Consultant, Element Home Buyers
21% of businesses had 251+ employees before the labor shortage. These businesses have maintained their 251+ employee team size in 2022
Throughout the post-pandemic labor shortage, it’s interesting that the Pollfish data shows large companies were able to maintain the same number of employees throughout the ordeal. Small businesses and startups struggled to keep pace during the pandemic and were forced to downsize in many cases, while larger organizations with higher revenue streams were better equipped to retain staff as well as maintain the needs of employees. In essence, larger businesses were considered safe havens for their employees in an economic landscape with few stable elements.
Overall Breakdown
| Team Size Pre-COVID | |
|---|---|
| 2-5 employees | 9% |
| 6-10 employees | 11% |
| 11-25 employees | 9% |
| 26-50 employees | 12% |
| 51-100 employees | 15% |
| 101-250 employees | 15% |
| 251+ employees | 21% |
| My business size wasn’t different before the labor shortage | 9% |
| Team Size in 2022 | |
|---|---|
| 2-5 employees | 11% |
| 6-10 employees | 10% |
| 11-25 employees | 10% |
| 26-50 employees | 13% |
| 51-100 employees | 17% |
| 101-250 employees | 18% |
| 251+ employees | 21% |
Breakdown by Years in Business
| Team Size Pre-COVID | Team Size in 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 1 year | 16% – 26-50 employees | 24% – 2-5 employees |
| 1-2 years | 20% – 6-10 employees | 21% – 2-5 employees |
| 3-5 years | 21% – 51-100 employees | 20% – 51-100 employees |
| 6-9 years | 23% – 101-250 employees | 22% – 101-250 employees |
| 10+ years | 40% – 251+ employees | 40% – 251+ employees |
The COVID-19 pandemic has been universally disruptive, and the fallout has left many organizations scrambling to restaff or reconfigure their operations around minimal staffing, often leveraging AI tools more often in order to accomplish either of these goals. We first engaged our community of small business owners to find out whether their business size had changed significantly as the labor shortages expanded.
“No, the size of my business has not changed since the recent labor shortages. Even though many of my employees have left, due to the Great Resignation, we have managed to replace them with AI technology and tools. This has not just enabled us to maintain the original size of our business, but even expand it to greater heights by minimizing human error.”
—Randy Soderman, Founder, Soderman SEO
“Yes, my business size has changed due to the recent labor shortages, and I haven’t been able to find new hires. Add the Great Resignation to the mix, and it turns into a story no one wants to be a part of. Due to this reason, my business size has slightly decreased, and I no longer have the same number of employees as before.”
—Brandon Walsh, Founder, Interly
In correlation with our previous findings, 46% of small businesses overall intend to use AI while increasing their number of employees. This remained the trend when further analyzing responses by the number of years in business
With businesses across every industry increasingly relying upon software solutions driven by artificial intelligence, our Pollfish data across multiple studies now has held up the fact that technology solutions have become crucial business tools that cannot be excluded from strategic business plans. Regardless of how long a business has been in operation, this widespread application of AI-driven software shows that doing so is a requirement for any business to remain competitive and even well-established businesses are adapting their approach to incorporate technology.
While AI tools allow businesses to operate more efficiently, businesses that have successfully navigated the pandemic are using the added operational capacity made possible by software solutions to dedicate the freed-up manpower to restaffing and improving the employment experience for existing staff members to improve retention.
Overall Breakdown
Primary AI Use in 2022
46% – We plan to use AI while increasing our number of employees
36% – We intend to use AI while maintaining the same number of employees that we currently have
11% – We’re going to use more AI tools and decrease our team size
7% – Other
Breakdown by Years in Business
| Years in Business | Primary AI Use in 2022 |
|---|---|
| Less than 1 year | 51% – We plan to use AI while increasing our number of employees |
| 1-2 years | 39% – We plan to use AI while increasing our number of employees |
| 3-5 years | 42% – We plan to use AI while increasing our number of employees |
| 6-9 years | 51% – We plan to use AI while increasing our number of employees |
| 10+ years | 50% – We plan to use AI while increasing our number of employees |
Brands have taken any number of approaches to recover in the post-pandemic landscape. We followed up with our inquiry to staff size to find out how changes in team size have impacted small business owners and their usage of AI software.
“Our usage of AI tools in our team has not changed so much based on changes in our team size. We use the same AI tools with a larger team as we would with a small team. The tools we use include Slack, Trello, Google Docs, and the entire G-Suite. We use these tools to make our process more efficient, giving us more time to focus on the work most important to our clients. We use these tools to help us manage projects and deadlines, to communicate more effectively, and to plan effectively. We hope that by using the AI tools that we have chosen, we are pursuing the best practices.”
—Frederic P. Lebeuf, Founder & Owner, Bombing Science
“My usage of AI tools has changed ever since a significant chunk of my workforce quit their jobs. This left me with no option but to start using AI software like chatbots. It helped reduce the workload of my existing employees. As a result, job satisfaction increased, and I didn’t lose more workers. Additionally, the current team size is working great for us; I don’t plan on making any changes in the coming year.”
—Rowena Kelley, Head of Communications & Brand, Riskified
“I have been using AI tools as far back as I can recall, but I had to rely on them even more during the changes in my manpower. AI tools were a big saving grace for me to quickly get back on my feet after losing employees drastically due to understandable circumstances. AI allowed me to quickly recover from the bump in the road and immediately get back to business as usual.”
—Brogan Renshaw, Founder & Director, Modelers Central
As we’ve seen from Pollfish survey data and commentary provided by small business owners across industries, the post-pandemic application of AI-driven software has been a way for brands to stabilize operations and rebuild their staffing in ways that don’t risk their ability to continue to meet the needs of customers. This increased reliance on AI tools has come with several positives and negatives, which we’ll overview in the following section.
The Pros and Cons of AI Tools
A majority of businesses noted that the biggest benefit of AI tools has been faster turnaround times for projects
Artificial intelligence-driven applications have the distinct benefit of introducing increased efficiencies at multiple points of any given project or business task, helping businesses establish competitive advantages not otherwise possible. Over time, the increased efficiencies combine to allow staff to spend more effort and resources on projects that need their attention, which decreases the overall turnaround time for tasks and projects.
The same efficiency improvements ensure businesses can execute projects and business processes with fewer resources and staff over time, a vital benefit at a time when businesses are looking to financially recover from the financial impact of the pandemic quarantines and closures of the last two years. Utilizing AI tools, businesses can identify opportunities to change and improve their services and products based on the data gathered from customers and potential clients, which indirectly also allows brands to better prioritize projects for the team. As feedback from our community above indicates, it makes sense that fewer respondents are pointing at business growth and expansion as a benefit given the challenges posed by the staffing shortage.
On a scale of 1-8, 1 being the biggest benefit
Faster turnaround time for projects
Fewer resources are needed (fewer employees, less outsourcing, etc)
Improve our products/services
Allows employees to focus on more impactful projects
Saves us money
Helps us grow our business faster
Allows us to more easily expand our business into other markets
Other
We asked small business owners to add their perspective to our study on the pros AI tools offer their staff as they become increasingly integral to post-COVID operations.
“For us, the biggest benefit of using Copywriter Artificial Intelligence tools is that it has removed a lot of the manual research that goes into writing an article. We were able to write using general guidelines about the topic our readers were interested in, which resulted in greater engagement and higher click-through rates on our content. We’ve been using some Copywriter AI tools for over a year now and it has had a huge impact on our blog traffic. In fact, as a result of using the tool, we were able to increase our organic search traffic by 48% in just one year! We think copywriters are taking over the world, and we couldn’t be happier about it!”
—Chris Muller, Director of Audience Growth, Doughroller
“By implementing the correct AI technology, I have enjoyed a lot of benefits for my business and eased the burden of tiresome activities. By automating and optimizing common procedures and operations, I have been able to save time and money while also increasing productivity and operational efficiencies. I have also been able to create quicker business decisions based on cognitive technology outputs. AI has been useful in predicting client preferences and providing them with a more personalized experience. I have increased revenue by spotting and exploiting sales opportunities, and obtaining accurate analysis to provide intelligent guidance and help to grow my expertise.”
—Caitlyn Parish, Founder & CEO, Cicinia
“We primarily use text AI and visual AI tools. The text AI tool helps us with customer service by quickly responding to customer queries as I have staff who are duolingo, and communication has been smooth so far. It also helps to quicken administrative tasks such as data entry and contract generation. The visual AI tool primarily helps us with identifying potential fraudulent activities. It is also very useful in helping us to monitor employee performance. Overall, these AI tools have been very helpful in streamlining our company’s operations. The use of AI tools has been a game-changer for my business. Not only has it helped to automate routine tasks, but it has also made it easier to track customer behavior and identify potential areas for growth.”
—Luke Lee, Founder, Ever Wallpaper
However, most respondents also noted that AI tools are too expensive and don’t always offer accurate enough results
AI-driven software platforms have saturated the market due to demand, but that level of competitiveness in the marketplace has done little to drive down prices. In addition to the expense, our Pollfish respondents point to the accuracy and scope of such tools as the leading drawbacks. Related complaints show that many software providers are suffering from the impacts of minimal staffing themselves, with leading complaints including poor design and excessive glitches in the software itself, poorly formatted final output and low-quality results, and tools that are billed as automation solutions but require excessive manual hands-on attention.
On a scale of 1-7, 1 being the biggest challenge
The technology isn’t thorough enough or accurate enough
Too expensive
The tools have too many glitches and/or technical problems
The output/final results are of poor quality
The tools aren’t advanced enough to solely rely on – manual work is still needed
There aren’t enough types of AI tools that cover our business needs
Other
It’s important to remember as small business owners that automated software platforms and AI-driven technology solutions are tools that still require significant human input and guidance to achieve results. There are inherent drawbacks to reliance on such tools, and our community of marketing professionals and business owners had insight into the challenges they are facing deploying these tools.
“AI tools introduce unnecessary bias into many processes. I believe that AI makes conclusions and predictions based on data. This information may involve deliberate or unconscious prejudice. If so, an AI system could make decisions that discriminate against specific groups or categories of individuals. For instance, AI systems may utilize inherently faulty data, resulting in bias and/or discrimination. Since the majority of the data consisted of resumes from men, the machine incorrectly inferred that being male was one of the qualities of an excellent job prospect.”
—Dr. Frederik Lipfert, Founder & CEO, VPNCheck.org
“No AI approach can be completely hands-off. As effective as it is, AI isn’t quite at the stage where it can imitate and reproduce a human touch. This means that any content solely created by an AI will look and feel off to your consumers. It lacks the creative, out-of-the-box thinking that humans embody when they write. For this reason, the best solution is to write content manually and fill in the gaps with AI. By giving the AI something to work with, they can help you where you fall short and offer optimizations in terms of phrasing, grammar, and syntax. To me, this is the perfect middle ground between speeding up content creation without sacrificing quality.”
—Aaron Gray, Co-Founder, Agency 101
“The biggest drawbacks of using AI tools have been a lack of understanding of how to use them effectively. AI tools are only as good as the people who use them. If you don’t know how to use an AI tool, it can be a huge waste of time and resources—and sometimes even dangerous! So before you start using any AI tool, make sure that you have a plan for learning how to use it properly.”
—Will Yang, Head of Growth, Instrumentl
As with any software solution with business applications, AI software comes with benefits and drawbacks, many of which revolving around the ability of the user to properly leverage the tools to their advantage. As some of the drawbacks listed by our respondents show, not all tools are created equally, and so it’s important to explore what tools professionals are using in the field to ensure your team isn’t wasting time with tools that pose more problems than they solve.
AI Tool 2022 Usages
22% of both B2B and B2C businesses said that they currently use text AI tools most frequently
Artificial intelligence is leveraged in software to support every type of software application and usage. The Pollfish respondents show that text-to-speech tools and other text-focused AI are the most often utilized. Text AI platforms also allow for chatbot-led customer service, content generation for social media and landing pages, and machine translation tasks to be accomplished through software. They also play a significant role in search engine optimization (SEO) and paid advertising campaign creation.
With the increasing importance of big data and data science, it follows that Analytic AI tools are among the top types of tools being leveraged. Data scientists are using these tools to tackle any task dealing with large amounts of data, while decision-makers are using the data and insight provided to streamline business operations in real-time to maximize profitability. Equally important are Interactive AI tools, often paired with Text AI systems, in use cases that include the support of automated virtual assistants, voice assistants, real speech-assisted search, and natural language processing platforms that support interactive chatbots used in customer support systems and CRM platforms.
Visual and Functional AI systems are growing in their application as augmented reality and virtual reality continue to be utilized to expand educational tools and AI software platforms. Combined with Functional AI systems, robotics and automation across manufacturing and other industries can be greatly improved. In retail settings, customer journeys are being improved through face recognition solutions.
22% – Text AI (text to speech, etc.)
17% – Visual AI (augmented reality, etc.)
20% – Analytic AI (supplier risk assessment, etc.)
17% – Functional AI (robots, etc.)
20% – Interactive AI (smart personal assistant, etc.)
4% – Other
We reached out to our community of small business owners and business professionals to discover the different applications of AI that are being deployed.
“AI content writing tools are what we mainly use in our SEO business. After all, content is our industry’s bread and butter. We need to come up with quality articles and text in the most efficient way possible, and so we use AI content writing tools as our artificial wordsmiths. Jarvis AI is one of the tools that we have used. It’s easy to use and mind-blowingly fast in the production of content. While it’s five times as quick as our SEO writers, we don’t consider Jarvis AI as a replacement for our employees. It is just a tool that can help us produce content faster. Jarvis AI does the initial work of creating the draft and our SEO employees edit its output. There’s still quality assurance (and human touch) despite using an AI tool.”
—Israel Gaudette, Affiliate Marketer/SEO Specialist, IG Marketing Inc.
“With visual AI, our company can detect, recognize, categorize, and sort things and extract insights from photographs and videos. A computer system that helps an insurance company estimate damage based on photos of wrecked vehicles and a machine that evaluates apples according to their color and size are instances of artificial visual intelligence. This form of artificial intelligence encompassed computer vision and augmented reality. To get a true sense of the value that visual AI can bring, you can learn more about a face recognition solution that we developed to help a retailer improve and personalize their customer service or about an application for automated inspections that allowed a manufacturer to immediately control the quality of the manufactured details.”
—Alan Spurgeon, Founding Director, Hedgehog
“Our business uses Analytical AI. Powered by machine learning including its most sophisticated deep learning methods, analytic AI examines massive amounts of data for correlations and patterns to provide suggestions or insights for our company, helping to data-driven decision making. Its uses include sentiment analysis and supplier risk assessment. It is also impactful in inventory optimization and demand forecasting.”
—Derek Warburton, CEO, Mr. Warburton Media
While 33% of B2B businesses primarily use AI tools to assist with administrative tasks, 31% of B2C businesses leverage AI for both customer-facing needs and administrative tasks
AI tools can provide powerful boosts to many business tasks but are often leveraged to solve the problems that most vex businesses. With staffing shortages plaguing many B2B organizations, current trends have many organizations pointing AI tools at administrative tasks to ease the workload on other departments and allow employees to focus on revenue generation and customer engagement.
Operationally, AI-driven systems can assist with time-consuming tasks and introduce efficiencies into all workflows. For customer-facing purposes, analytics and visual AI help to streamline and personalize the customer experience.
B2B
32% – Customer-facing (Customer service, PoS, etc.)
31% – Operations (Stocking, Cleaning, etc.)
33% – Administrative (Scheduling, Forecasting, etc.)
5% – Other
B2C
31% – Customer-facing (Customer service, PoS, etc.)
27% – Operations (Stocking, Cleaning, etc.)
31% – Administrative (Scheduling, Forecasting, etc.)
10% – Other
Small business owners are leveraging AI for a multitude of reasons to solve business challenges and establish initiatives that help them gain market share. Our community of owners weighed in with their explanations of why they’ve folded AI into their technology stacks.
“We use Tamr for data analysis. Tamr is an AI-assisted platform for data preparation that enables enterprises to rapidly find and correct data problems, so they can trust their data for analysis. Enterprises face growing pressure to derive value from ever-larger and more complex data sets, but many struggle with the time-consuming and error-prone task of preparing that data for analysis. Tamr’s machine learning algorithms automate the identification and correction of errors in large datasets, dramatically reducing the time and effort required to get them ready for analysis.”
—Michael Kim, Co-Founder, Evcharger Reviews
“Transactional AI allows us to focus on the tasks that are important to us by automating the tasks that would otherwise be done manually. This type of AI is used to streamline and automate tasks such as customer service, data entry, and appointment scheduling. Transactional AI can help improve efficiency and accuracy while reducing costs. We use predictive AI to make predictions about future events, trends, and behaviors. This can be helpful for things like demand forecasting, risk assessment, and fraud detection. Predictive AI can help businesses make better decisions and avoid potential problems.”
—Sam Shepler, Founder, Testimonial Hero
“My biggest need for AI tools is for administrative tasks. Action items like responding to emails, customer service issues, and invoices are where most of my AI resources go. These are tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming, but don’t necessarily require the time and energy of my employees.”
—Jason White, CEO, All About Gardening
Businesses are leveraging artificial intelligence for any number of business purposes to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19. Useful across operational needs and customer-facing applications, administrative challenges are the most often cited when owners are asked why they’ve integrated specific AI solutions.
Mitigate the Impact of the Labor Shortage in 2022 With AI Software Tools
AI tools have become especially vital in mitigating the impact of the labor shortage businesses have been experiencing throughout 2021 and 2022, helping human resources experts recruit more efficiently and improving other operational practices across the board. To address the business challenges caused by staffing gaps, whether it’s administrative gaps or operational challenges, your brand can’t afford to exclude AI-driven tools from the software stack. If you’re looking to expand your capabilities in 2022, but need more insight into how you might apply software to your specific needs, you can explore our community of AI-focused consultants.
Want to educate yourself first and gain more insight into the solutions out there for your small business? Our Experts platform provides insight on multiple business cases that will help you decide where your pain points are and the types of software that will best meet your needs, positioning your team to take the next necessary steps in your journey towards recovery from the labor shortage in 2022.
UpCity’s Survey Method
UpCity used Pollfish to survey 600 U.S. small business owners and employees who leverage artificial intelligence tools in 2022. Our goal was to learn more about their daily AI usage and if their investments in AI were impacted by the recent labor shortage.
Twenty-nine percent of the respondents are Owners or Partners, followed by Middle Managers (19%), C-Level Executives (17%), Senior Managers (12%), Presidents, CEOs, and Chairpersons (10%), and Chief Technology Officers (5%).
Sixty-eight percent of the respondents are male and thirty-two percent are female.