Monday, June 15, 2020

7 AI Tools that Boost Your Productivity

Anyone working in today's busy world knows just how valuable time can be. Without the right resources and goals, you'll likely lose time and potential customers. AI (artificial intelligence) is stepping up to provide new ways to get more done during your day. AI software and apps can help manage schedules, social media accounts, email, security and more. Related: How to lock in your team's productivity If you're looking for ways to boost your productivity, take a look at these 7 AI productivity tools that bring a little of the future into your present day. 1. x.ai x.ai is a scheduling utility that automates meeting schedules and invitations. When you receive a meeting invitation, you reply and Cc: Amy, the artificial assistant, who then handles all the back and forth regarding the meeting's time and location. You can test out a free trial of x.ai, but you'll have to jump to the end of a long waitlist to do so. You can also opt for a subscription starting at $39 per month and skip the wait. 2. Conversica If you need help qualifying and following up with sales leads, Conversica is your go-to AI software. The AI initiates conversations with your leads, and when the software thinks a potential sale will happen, it notifies a salesperson so they can jump in and close that deal. The beauty is that the human conversations generated by the software don't let the lead know they're chatting with a bot. While you can test a free monthly package that allows you to message 25 leads each month, you might get more out of a paid subscription if you need additional assistance. The Professional Edition plan runs around $3,000 for an annual subscription. Pricing depends on which package you choose. The overall cost may seem expensive, but if qualifying leads eats up a large chunk of your business's time, the investment may be worth it. 3. Trevor For task management and personal planning, turn to Trevor. This AI connects your to-do list with your calendar so you can perform certain tasks at the best times for you. You just have to tell Trevor what task you'd like to take care of—say, going to visit a partner or agency. It'll look over your calendar and suggest when to make that stop. Trevor is still under active development, but you can download and use the free beta version through the web or an iOS app. The company behind the smart assistant says it will be available soon for more platforms, including Slack and Messenger. 4. Legal Robot Legal Robot is a handy tool that analyzes contracts and other legal documents, checking for fairness and clarity. It performs risk analysis on your documents and points out potential legal issues and expenses you may face in the future. This bot will also help make sure your website is compliant with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) regulations regarding copyright infringement. The company who created this AI tool, however, carefully points out that it does not provide legal advice. Legal Robot only compares your specific document to case law and other similar documents. If you need in-depth legal counsel, consult with an accredited lawyer. You can sign up for Legal Robot's DMCA Safe Harbor Bot for $39 per year. Additional bots are in alpha and beta status for legal language simplification, contract analysis, and other needs. These AI tools will be available to the public soon. 5. Frontier Secure In this age of big-name hacks and cybercrime, online security should always be a top priority for businesses, especially those that deal with sensitive information. Frontier Secure keeps tabs on your computers and data to mitigate corruption, theft and loss. It also offers secure cloud storage to keep your content safe and accessible. Rather than leaving your sensitive information vulnerable to hackers and would-be thieves, use Frontier Secure to back up your data and protect it. You'll never have to worry about accidentally losing your customers' and employees' private information, and you can even access that data from anywhere should you need to handle an emergency away from your office or shop. Frontier Secure plans start at $14.99 per month. 6. Salesforce Einstein Discovery Salesforce, a popular customer relationship management (CRM) application, gets a futuristic makeover with this intelligent tool. It analyzes leads and determines how likely they are to close. It can also keep your records updated and let you know when it's time to follow up with those individuals. The best part? Einstein Discovery is built into many Salesforce products, meaning you won't have to purchase this AI in addition to other tools. No matter how you use Salesforce, Einstein learns and makes suggestions for your benefit. If you need another way to connect to your customers, don't worry. Salesforce offers an array of other AI tools to help you with commerce, marketing, customer service and more. Plans start as low as $25 a month (billed annually). 7. Astro Astro, an email-based AI app for Gmail and Office 365 accounts, makes managing your inbox a little easier. This highly customizable app features snooze functions and delayed sending. It also offers a priority inbox that uses artificial intelligence to help you get to the important messages more quickly instead of letting them get lost in a sea of useless emails. Depending on your preferences, you can even integrate this AI tool with Slack or Amazon Alexa. This app is available for iOS, Android, and Mac and is free to download and use. Bonus: Lucidpress As commerce moves from product centricity to customer centricity, it becomes more and more important to build and protect your brand. A strong brand leads to stronger relationships with customers, leads, and the public at large. And, as we know from our research, it leads to stronger bottom lines. For this reason, enforcing brand consistency across your organization is vital to its growth. But how do you prevent rogue, off-brand content from sneaking through sales teams, people operations, and all the other departments that generate content? Lucidpress in 60 seconds Lucidpress streamlines brand consistency by baking it into the content creation process. When you create documents in Lucidpress, they're housed in a central location with advanced sharing & editing permissions. All the brand assets you need (logos, colors, fonts, etc.) are accessible from right inside the editor, so no one has to track down the latest approved versions. Plus, you can lock down parts of your documents to prevent future changes—no deleting, moving, hiding or stretching. It's the simplest way to ensure that your organization's content is beautifully branded. Lucidpress offers several pricing options depending on the size of your team and the features you need. However, if you want to give it a test drive, it's easy to sign up for a free account. You can create documents from scratch or start with a template. Any of these tools can help you explore all the possibilities AI can offer your business. Just look at your company's needs and your goals for increased productivity to decide which one will best serve you. Ready to save more time? Lucidpress makes it easy to create beautifully branded content in a matter of minutes.