Get More Productive With AI

If I started a new company in 2025, I’d have an unfair advantage because knowing how to use AI tools for business would save me so much time, it's such a productivity hack. It would put me right ahead of other small business owners who are not using AI (which in 2025 must be a very small portion).

However, next to the usual suspects like LLMs, there are so many more use cases. AI can help businesses make most processes somewhere between 50-95% faster, depending on the area. That can be through automation or via generative AI. 

Sure, most output from AI tools for business creation still requires human fine-tuning. I like to call this ‘The best of both worlds’: artificial intelligence spits out endless information, and humans hone it to their liking.

I’ve been reviewing AI tools for over a year now, and I’ve literally seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Daily, I sift out the buggy and too-early-launched AI software for you.

Here, I’ll share the use cases and very best AI tools for small businesses and business creation.

Ideation, Brand and Audience Definition

First of all, I’d use Chat as my sparring partner for developing ideas and for thinking about who my perfect customer would be. What are their pain points, and what problem can I solve for them? The most famous AI tool would tell me about competitors and how they approach their business.

Next, I’d bring my brand to life with an AI logo maker like Looka. I’d have to input only a few a markers like industry and color preference and would get suggestions for a logo of my new business. With Looka, I could work on variations instead of working on the original, and the version history would let me decide on the final best logo generated by AI for my small biz.

Creating Marketing Material

I’d ask Grammarly’s AI for help in writing my first material for marketing campaigns. This famous spelling checker hasn’t missed the next technological step and has integrated an AI writer that admittedly sounds almost better than anything I could write (almost only because it's struggling with humour and informal tone of voice).

AI Video Generators like Pictory or Veed.io would make editing videos for TikTok or my website literally 100% easier. They would provide me with a huge variety of stock-free clips and background music to play with. Or I’d upload a script written by ChatGPT, and the video AI tool would match it with suitable frames.

Social Media Presence

ContentStudio would help me spread the happy gospel about my newly built small business with AI tools, by taking over scheduling and adjusting posts for various social media platforms. Tools help with new content ideas, and via its analytics features, it would let me check out what has worked best so far.

Image generators like Adobe’s Firefly would create literally any image I can dream of for my website. I’d share info on style, colour preference, background and perspective, but in the end it would come up with something completely different...that still works. Be aware that image generators are like little time machines and can suck you into their beautiful world of creation for a looong time.

AI tools like Relume would let me copy the entire wireframe of other websites I like, and let me copy them.

Getting extra cash

Let’s say I’ve spent my breaks reading entrepreneurs’ biographies, and ambition got in my head; I’d put together a nice presentation and request funding.   My choice for presentation AI would so easily fall on Gamma for this; for biographies, it would be ’Shoe Dog’ by Phil Knight (Gee, how many ups and downs he endured! Now I feel like a sissy when I complain about little things like Google’s Search algorithm changes…) Getting back to the actual topic: Gamma is just by far the best presentation AI out there and it can generate a whole presentation from scratch from one single prompt. Ok, if you request money, you should probably add that human touch I was talking about above to your presentation. AI tools for small businesses can raise productivity but not money (yet). 

Staying Liquid and paid

Let’s say the ball is rolling and I have to start writing my first invoices (yay!). Then, accounting AI like Bonsai could create my bills with just a click and remind clients to pay me. Plus, after collecting data for a couple of months, it could provide a realistic forecast of my finances. Honestly, how good is it not to have to send out invoice reminders manually?!

Crunching Data

Whether for marketing, sales, production, or basically anything else: a small business in 2025 will have accumulated tons of data. A data analytics tool like Julius AI is like a non-bogus fortune teller: they will help you read the cards and suggest clever next steps. At least business-wise. 

Customer Relationship Management

Let’s say my business is like a moskito in a nudist colony: very busy! Then I’ll have to keep a proper overview of the different pipelines, clients and business operations. A great CRM software powered by AI would let me automate simple workflows and send out personalized emails in bulk.

Virtual (unreal) Assistant

And by that, I mean the real virtual assistants, not the person who takes care of things for you and sits overseas. Note-taking tools like Fireflies AI will protocol the heck out of your meetings and send you a summary by email. Yes, it’s really the petty things AI tools for small businesses can take over for you. I never heard anyone say: Gosh, I love taking notes at meetings!