How Can AI Automate Your Processes?
Beyond the buzzword, Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool to eliminate the repetitive tasks that slow down your teams. We present 3 concrete use cases, immediately applicable in an SME, to boost productivity and generate a visible ROI in weeks.
AI is not just for tech giants. Today, accessible solutions allow any SME to automate its processes, free up valuable time, and make better decisions. The key is not to revolutionize everything at once, but to start with a targeted, high-impact project. Here are three concrete examples.
Use Case #1: Automate Vendor Invoice Processing
The problem: Your accounting department spends hours each week receiving invoices by email, manually extracting information (vendor, amount, date, VAT...), and entering it into your accounting software. It's slow, tedious, and prone to errors.
The AI solution: An AI-based "Automated Document Reading" (ADR) solution can:
- Read a dedicated mailbox and identify new invoices.
- Automatically and accurately extract all key information.
- Validate the information against your purchase orders.
- Insert the data directly into your ERP or accounting software.
The gain: You reduce processing time tenfold, eliminate data entry errors, and speed up your payment cycles. The ROI is measurable in a few months.
Use Case #2: Create a First-Level Customer Support Assistant
The problem: Your support team constantly answers the same questions: "What are your hours?", "Where is my order?", "How do I reset my password?". Meanwhile, complex requests are kept waiting.
The AI solution: An intelligent chatbot (like those developed with Botpress) can be trained on your knowledge base (FAQ, documentation...). It will be able to:
- Instantly answer 80% of common questions, 24/7.
- Guide users through simple procedures.
- If the question is too complex, create a ticket and forward it to the right person with all the necessary context.
The gain: Increased customer satisfaction thanks to immediate responses, and a support team that can focus on high-value cases.
Use Case #3: Analyze Customer Feedback to Identify Trends
The problem: You receive hundreds of customer reviews, social media comments, and survey responses... a goldmine of information that you don't have time to analyze in depth.
The AI solution: Sentiment analysis tools can "read" all these comments and automatically classify them:
- Identify recurring themes (e.g., "shipping", "price", "product quality").
- Detect whether the sentiment is positive, negative, or neutral for each theme.
- Alert you in real-time if a spike in negative comments appears on a specific topic.
The gain: You no longer operate blindly. You have a clear dashboard to understand what your customers love (and hate) and make decisions based on data, not intuition.
Conclusion: Start Small, Aim High
AI can seem daunting, but the key is not to try to do everything at once. Identify a manual, repetitive, and costly process in your company. It's the perfect candidate for a first automation project. The success of this first project will create the momentum needed to transform your organization more broadly.