How To Leverage AI And Automation With SaaS Platforms

KPMG stated that?94%?of C-suite executives implementing AI in their workplace believe in its potential to optimize their organization and help it add greater value across every key performance indicator.

Things will change when one of the big four says something like that.

No SaaS, No Progress

How does that tie in with software as a service (SaaS)?

Sixty percent?of American businesses use SaaS to save them upfront software and hardware installation costs, resulting in tremendous cost savings as opposed to the traditional on-premise setup.

Ultimately, SaaS enables startups to gain access to high-performance software solutions on demand at significantly lower costs.

Leveraging SaaS AI Platforms To Maximize Business Efficiency

SaaS is beginning to embrace the inexorable march toward AI and machine learning—just as mainstream and investor interest is starting to stir.

No-code AI SaaS solutions, products and services can be rolled out in a drag-and-drop fashion on-demand, making it the absolute bleeding edge of innovation in the coming years.

And we've barely scratched the tip of the iceberg.

How AI-Powered Writing Assistants Can Help Businesses

Recently, my team chose to leverage an AI-powered writing assistant called Tailwind, a prime example of an AI SaaS solution that can help small and medium businesses thrive in this rapidly evolving market.

AI-powered writing assistants can offer several benefits by simplifying and streamlining the content creation process. Here are five features leaders should seek out when considering such solutions.

1. Cost Savings and Efficiency

A strong solution should help save your business time and resources by automating content generation, allowing your team to focus on other critical tasks and reduce overhead costs.

2. Consistency and Engagement

The right AI tool should help your business maintain a cohesive brand image and create captivating content that resonates with your target audience, leading to higher engagement and better conversion rates.

3. Improved SEO

Consider whether a tool will help aid in optimizing content for search engines by suggesting relevant keywords, phrases and ideal content structures to boost search engine rankings.

4. Scaling Content Production

Determine whether a given AI-powered writing assistant will enable you to scale your content production without additional staff as your business grows, generating a wide range of content types to meet demands.

5. Enhanced Creativity and Innovation

By leveraging AI-generated suggestions, businesses can break through writer's block, gain fresh perspectives and develop innovative content ideas to set them apart.

Factors To Consider When Choosing An AI SaaS Platform

As these solutions have become more widespread, they've materialized into a new category of specialized software:?AIaaS.?While general AI platforms can do various tasks very well, a specialized AI SaaS can do a particular one much better.

AI-powered writing assistants stand to change the game for copywriting. But with so many market options, how do you pick the best solution for your business?

Choosing an AI-enabled SaaS platform to streamline your business is no laughing matter. Let's explore what factors to account for, steps to take and mistakes to avoid when selecting one that suits your business needs.

1. Scalability

As your business grows, so do your user numbers and the volume of data you're working with. You'll want to ensure 24/7 availability with zero backlogs to ensure your platform isn't prone to latency or failure.

2. Ease Of Integration

Depending on your organization's requirements, you'll want a certain depth of integration with your company's existing infrastructure, apps, services and data. Integrations can be complex, and you'll want your solution to be as easy to integrate with your setup.

3. The Degree Of Customization Needed For Your Business

Since there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, you might not get the optimal results from the wrong solution. That's why choosing a best fit for the functionality, performance and integrations you need is essential.

4. Price

Startups, bootstrappers and solopreneurs might not require the most expensive solution for their requirements, while larger businesses might require an enterprise-ready service. Therefore, you'll want to choose one that provides good value for the price and the goals you wish to achieve by using it.

Mistakes To Avoid

Before making that commitment, it's important to take the right steps to determine what platform works best for you. Likewise, understand that there will be pitfalls when using an AI SaaS platform and separating marketing from reality.

Here are some common mistakes business owners and decision makers often make when choosing one.

1. Committing Too Fast, Too Soon

Don't be pressured into committing, no matter how enticing a vendor's packages might be. A good deal today is a good deal tomorrow—and it often pays to stay the course and evaluate the platform thoroughly to form a complete assessment before committing. Make sure there aren't unnecessary features or longer lock-ins than you need.

2. Setting And Forgetting

Getting an AI SaaS platform isn't a one-off job you set and forget. It's more like tending a garden in that you need to stay on top of it throughout the implementation process to ensure that every part of your garden is well-tended—meaning you need to monitor your performance and efforts.

Analyze what else can be improved, measure everything with data and determine whether results align with your key performance indicators

3. No SOPs Or Team Onboarding

You can have the latest AI SaaS solution for your business with all the premium features, but it won't amount to much unless your team adopts it and uses it in their day-to-day tasks. Granted, it's never easy to get team members to use new technologies without a bit of nudging, but the only way you'll get ROI using these new technologies is by gaining company-wide buy-in.

Finding The Right AI Solution For Your Business Needs

Artificial intelligence will disrupt the modern business landscape across every industry—including SaaS.

When SaaS is combined with AI's immense potential, it allows businesses to extract the most value out of their investment by gaining deeper, value-added insights from their data, automating and personalizing products, solutions and services—and supercharging human capacity to previously unthinkable levels.

Please share your thoughts on utilizing AI and automation with SaaS platforms in the comments section below.??

This article first appeared in Forbes.