15 AI Tools to Boost Your Business Productivity: Real-World Examples

Boosting business productivity isn’t optional; it’s survival in today’s competitive landscape.

Eye-opening statistics show up to a 40% productivity increase for skilled users when using artificial intelligence (AI) tools in business operations, specifically generative AI. This is equivalent to stretching a 24-hour day into a shocking 34.8-hour all-action workday.

Join us as we delve into the transformative journey of 15 exceptional AI productivity tools and real-life success stories that significantly boost business productivity. It’s not just about staying relevant but leading your market sector.

So, ready to supercharge your workflow?

In the quest for heightened productivity, we’ve gathered insights from CEOs and Founders, who offer a glimpse into their favorite AI tools. From streamlining video editing with Descript to boosting design productivity with Canva AI, explore the diverse applications of AI across 15 different industry leaders.

• Descript streamlines video editing
• Decktopus enhances presentation creation
• Taskade AI agent automates routine tasks
• Zoho Suite automates business workflows
• Slack centralizes team communication
• Notion AI simplifies content creation
• Grammarly improves writing efficiency
• Manatal3 optimizes recruitment processes
• Clockwise manages smart scheduling
• Power Automate streamlines client onboarding
• HubSpot personalizes sales efforts
• Midjourney accelerates concept art creation
• Trello organizes tasks visually
• Salesforce Einstein predicts sales trends
• Canva AI boosts design productivity

Descript streamlines video editing

Descript is noteworthy in a sea of AI productivity tools for its suite of video editing features designed for efficiency, such as automatic transcription, multi-track editing, and an Overdub feature to fix mistakes in your speech. Its screen recording and podcasting capabilities, along with filler word removal and video publishing options, make it a versatile tool for content creators and businesses looking to streamline their video production process.

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Descript review:

A tool I find very helpful for work is ‘Descript.’ It’s good for editing videos or audio. One key feature is that it can change spoken words in the video into text, which is great for making subtitles or writing out what was said. Also, if someone makes a mistake in what they say, you can edit the written words, and it will change the audio to match. This feature has made correcting errors and updating content much easier, saving a lot of editing time. Plus, it’s really helpful for making our videos and podcasts more professional without needing to spend hours on editing.

Ilija Sekulov, Marketing & SEO, Mailbutler

Decktopus enhances presentation creation

Decktopus utilizes AI to streamline the presentation creation process for businesses. It offers intelligent design suggestions and content optimization, automatically adjusting layouts and visuals based on the user’s input. This efficiency enables users to focus on content rather than design details, making it easier to create professional presentations quickly.

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Decktopus review:

I’m always on the lookout for other tools that can elevate our efficiency and productivity. One such tool that has become my favorite for increasing productivity, especially in terms of content creation and presentation, is Decktopus.

Decktopus has quickly become an indispensable part of our productivity toolkit at Toggl. Its intuitive AI-driven interface simplifies presentation creation, making it not only faster but also more engaging. What sets it apart is its ability to understand our content needs and suggest layouts and designs that best convey our message, streamlining our workflow significantly.

One standout example of Decktopus in action was during our annual company review. The tool’s AI helped us compile a year’s worth of achievements and plans into a coherent, visually appealing presentation. Its suggestions on data visualization turned complex information into easily digestible slides, making the review both effective and engaging for our team.

Alari Aho, CEO and Founder, Toggl Inc

Taskade AI Agent automates routine tasks

If you need a helping hand to stay organized, Taskade AI is one of the best AI productivity tools available. But with the use of AI, this platform can help integrate technology into your daily work. Within this one tool, users can brainstorm, chat, generate workflow, and so much more.

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Taskade AI review:

My favorite AI tool in Taskade is definitely our AI Agent. It’s like having an extra set of hands on deck, helping us automate routine tasks and manage projects more efficiently. For example, we’ve used it to streamline our content planning process. By feeding our AI Agent with topics and goals, it suggests content outlines, generates draft ideas, and even helps schedule posts across our platforms. 

This tool has been a game-changer, allowing our team to focus more on creative and strategic tasks by handling the repetitive stuff. It’s not just about saving time; it’s also about enhancing our creativity and output quality, making our workflow smoother and more productive. The AI Agent embodies the intersection of AI and productivity, making it an indispensable part of our toolkit at Taskade.

John Xie, Co-Founder and CEO, Taskade

Zoho Suite automates business workflows

Zoho Suite is a comprehensive collection of cloud-based business applications designed to automate workflows across various business functions, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting, and more. It streamlines processes through automation tools, enabling businesses to manage tasks efficiently, enhance collaboration, and improve overall productivity. With features like custom workflow creation, automatic notifications, and data analysis, Zoho Suite helps businesses of all sizes reduce manual effort and focus on strategic goals.

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Zoho Suite review:

A standout AI tool that has made a significant difference in our processes is Zoho’s suite of applications. Its broad spectrum of functionalities—from project management with Zoho Projects to customer relationship management with Zoho CRM—has been instrumental in automating and optimizing our workflows.

For instance, we utilized Zoho CRM to automate lead generation and client follow-up processes. Previously, tracking and nurturing leads required significant manual effort, often leading to delays or missed opportunities. By setting up automated workflows in Zoho CRM, we ensured that every lead was immediately captured and assigned to the appropriate team member for follow-up. This not only increased our conversion rates but also allowed our team to focus on more high-value interactions with prospective clients.

Another specific example involves Zoho Projects, which we harnessed to manage and streamline our project workflows. By using Zoho Projects, we were able to provide real-time updates to our clients about the progress of their projects, thus enhancing transparency and trust. Moreover, the time-tracking feature of Zoho Projects allowed us to monitor the productivity of our team accurately, ensuring resources were allocated efficiently, leading to timely project delivery and increased client satisfaction.

These experiences with Zoho’s applications highlight the substantial benefits of integrating AI tools into business operations. It’s not just about automation; it’s about using technology strategically to refine processes, enhance productivity, and deliver superior value to customers. While these are just a couple of instances, the impact of these AI tools on our business operations has been profound, reinforcing my belief in leveraging technology to foster growth and improve service delivery.

Dylan Cleppe, Co-Founder & CEO, OneStop Northwest LLC

Slack centralizes team communication

Slack is a communication platform designed for businesses, facilitating collaboration through channels, direct messages, and integrations with numerous productivity tools. AI in Slack enhances this experience by automating routine tasks, offering smart recommendations for workflow improvements, and intelligently sorting messages and notifications to prioritize what’s most relevant. This helps businesses streamline communication, improve efficiency, and ensure that team members focus on high-priority work.

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Slack review:

One AI tool that businesses often find beneficial for productivity is Slack. Slack is a communication platform that integrates with various apps and services, fostering collaboration among team members. Its real-time messaging, file sharing, and integration capabilities help streamline communication and enhance overall efficiency.

For example, teams can create channels for different projects, departments, or topics, allowing for organized discussions. Integrations with third-party tools and apps enable automated notifications and updates within Slack.

This reduces the need to switch between multiple platforms. This centralized communication hub promotes quicker decision-making and smoother workflows, ultimately contributing to increased productivity in a business setting.

Julian Bruening, CEO, MLP Software Development

Notion AI simplifies content creation

Notion AI enhances the platform’s existing workspace tools with AI capabilities, helping businesses streamline task management, content creation, and data organization. It assists in generating writing content, summarizing notes, creating documents, and more, thereby improving efficiency and productivity in the workplace. This AI-powered writing assistant really has it all!

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Notion AI review:

My favorite AI tool for increasing productivity in our business is Notion AI. It has been instrumental in simplifying our work processes, particularly in content creation and organization. One example of how we’ve used Notion AI is in generating brand-new pages for our website. Instead of spending hours brainstorming and drafting content, Notion AI helps us quickly generate high-quality pages by extracting key insights from our database pages and crafting them into coherent written content. This has saved us a significant amount of time and effort while ensuring that our content remains informative and engaging for our audience. At our company, leveraging Notion AI has resulted in greater efficiency and productivity in our content creation workflow.

Neil Hodgson-Coyle, COO, TechNews180

Grammarly Improves Writing Efficiency

Many content creators and editors will already be familiar with Grammarly. This is a digital writing assistant that enhances business communications by checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style. It integrates with various platforms, ensuring professional, error-free writing across emails, documents, and web content. Grammarly’s AI-driven insights also offer suggestions for tone and clarity, helping businesses maintain a consistent voice and effectively convey messages. This tool boosts productivity by automating proofreading tasks, allowing teams to focus on their core activities. Grammarly can be used for everything from social media posts to blog articles to corporate communications and even collaborating in Google docs.

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Grammarly review:

When it comes to enhancing business productivity with AI tools, I swear by Grammarly. As someone deeply invested in maintaining top-notch communication standards, Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistance has been a game-changer. Whether it’s crafting client emails, composing marketing copy, or polishing blog posts, Grammarly’s real-time suggestions and corrections help me convey my message effectively and professionally, saving me valuable time and ensuring impeccable communication across all channels.

Bennett Heyn, CEO, Sell House Columbus Ohio

Manatal3 optimizes recruitment processes

Manatal recruitment software streamlines the hiring process with features like AI-driven candidate recommendations, a comprehensive CRM for managing applicant data, and integration with various job boards and social media platforms. It can automate repetitive tasks, enhance communication with candidates, and provide insightful analytics to make informed hiring decisions. For businesses, Manatal’s capabilities translate into faster, more efficient recruitment cycles and a better fit between candidates and job requirements while re-purposing mundane tasks.

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Manatal3 review:

I believe Manatal3 is a game-changer for our agency’s productivity. With its AI-driven approach, it streamlines our candidate-matching process, saving us valuable time and resources. For instance, when we had a tight deadline to fill a critical position, Manatal3 swiftly analyzed candidate profiles, pinpointing the best fits based on skills, experience, and cultural alignment. This efficiency allowed us to focus more on engaging with top candidates rather than sifting through countless resumes.

What truly sets Manatal3 apart is its continuous learning mechanism, honing its candidate recommendations to align more closely with our specific requirements over time. This dynamic adaptation is particularly valuable in our fast-paced industry, where staying ahead hinges on our ability to swiftly identify and secure top talent for our clients.

Overall, Manatal3 has become an indispensable tool in our quest for productivity and excellence. Its AI-powered features not only enhance our candidate sourcing and matching processes but also empower us to deliver exceptional results to our clients within the confines of a four-day workweek. It’s a testament to the transformative potential of AI in revolutionizing traditional business practices.

Phil McParlane, Founder & CEO, 4DayWeekJobs

Clockwise manages smart scheduling

Are you one of the many people who struggle with time management? Clockwise is a great companion. This tool is designed to optimize schedules, focusing on creating blocks of uninterrupted work time, thus enhancing productivity. It integrates with your calendar to automatically find the best times for meetings, while also ensuring you have dedicated time for focused work. By minimizing disruptions and efficiently organizing meetings, Clockwise helps businesses and individuals maximize their workday, leading to improved work-life balance and increased overall productivity without a steep learning curve.

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Clockwise review:

My favorite AI tool for boosting business productivity is Clockwise. Clockwise is a smart calendar assistant designed to help individuals and teams improve their focus and productivity.

Overall, Clockwise aims to combat the challenges of busy schedules and constant interruptions by promoting proactive time management, better focus, and seamless collaboration, ultimately leading to increased productivity and a better work-life balance.

James Owen, Co-Founder & Director, Click Intelligence

Power Automate streamlines client onboarding

Power Automate by Microsoft is a service designed to help users create automated workflows between applications and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more. It works by allowing users to design workflows that trigger specific actions based on predefined criteria – all powered by underlying natural language processing and machine learning. Key features include AI-driven insights, seamless integration with various Microsoft and third-party applications, and the ability to automate routine tasks. This leads to enhanced productivity by reducing manual workloads, streamlining business processes, and improving data management.

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Power Automate review:

I strongly recommend the Microsoft Power Automate tool for productivity enhancements. The tool has helped streamline the workforce by automating the client onboarding process. We’ve connected a sync service for our CRM, email, and document management tools using Power Automate. Data encryption is also automated because new client information triggers a series of actions, such as generating contracts and delegating duties. This is important due to the shortened onboarding duration, which helps avoid errors and maintain consistency. By saving time, the project team can move on to strategic elements, leading to improved business performance and greater client satisfaction.

Dhari Alabdulhadi, CTO and Founder, Ubuy Kuwait

HubSpot personalizes sales efforts

HubSpot is a comprehensive inbound marketing, sales, and service platform designed to help businesses attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. It personalizes sales efforts through its CRM features, allowing for targeted communication based on customer interactions and data, making it one of the more notable AI productivity apps for sales professionals. Other features include email marketing, content management, analytics, and automation tools, improving overall business productivity by streamlining operations and enhancing customer engagement.

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HubSpot review:

In terms of optimizing business productivity with AI, I’ve found tremendous value in using HubSpot’s AI-powered sales and marketing tools. HubSpot’s AI algorithms analyze customer data to provide personalized recommendations and insights, helping us tailor our outreach efforts for maximum impact. For example, leveraging HubSpot’s predictive lead-scoring capabilities, we’ve been able to prioritize high-quality leads, resulting in more targeted and effective sales efforts that yield higher conversion rates and ultimately boost revenue.

Bart Waldon, Co-Founder, Land Boss

Midjourney accelerates concept art creation

Midjourney is an AI tool designed to facilitate the rapid creation of concept art. It accelerates the artistic process by allowing creators to input text descriptions, which the AI then interprets to generate detailed visual concepts. This technology enables artists and designers to quickly explore a wide range of visual ideas, significantly reducing the time and effort traditionally required in the initial stages of concept development.

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Midjourney review:

We work in video, a very visual and creative medium. A huge part of our daily business is pitching for and winning new work. However, communicating a visual idea or concept can be extremely tough and either requires a lot of text or an investment in concept art. For the past year, however, we’ve been using Midjourney to produce highly creative and accurate concept art for our visual ideas and concepts. Images can be created far more quickly and with far better results than trying to find similar images online. Our AI concept art is then used throughout our pitch decks and helps communicate ideas clearly to our prospective clients. This has continually proven to be an effective method of winning new work and has even closed a deal on our most lucrative project to date.

Ryan Stone, Founder & Creative Director, Lambda Films London

Trello organizes tasks visually

Trello is a web-based project management application that uses boards, lists, and cards to help individuals and teams organize and prioritize their projects in a flexible, visual way. It enables users to collaborate on tasks, track progress, and manage workflows efficiently. It’s one of the best AI productivity apps for collaboration out there.

Trello leverages AI through features like Butler, an automation tool that streamlines task management by automating actions based on rules, due dates, and triggers set by users. This AI capability enhances productivity by reducing manual effort in organizing tasks, enabling team collaboration, and ensuring project milestones are met efficiently.

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Trello review:

My go-to AI tool for boosting productivity is Trello. It’s like having a virtual assistant that helps me organize tasks and projects. For instance, I use it to create boards for different projects, and then add cards for each task. This helps me stay on track and see what needs to be done at a glance.

Plus, Trello integrates with other apps like Google Drive and Slack, making collaboration seamless. Overall, it’s been a game-changer in helping me manage my workload efficiently.

Michael Branover, Business Development Director, Branover Contractors Inc

Salesforce Einstein predicts sales trends

Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions, sales, and marketing efforts. It uses AI through its Einstein platform, enhancing customer insights, personalizing marketing campaigns, automating tasks, and predicting sales trends, thereby improving efficiency and decision-making

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Salesforce Einstein review:

My go-to AI tool for boosting productivity in my business is Salesforce Einstein. It’s been a game-changer for us, particularly in sales forecasting. With its predictive analytics, it helps us anticipate customer needs and optimize our sales strategies. For instance, we integrated Einstein into our CRM system, allowing us to identify trends and target potential clients more effectively. This resulted in a significant increase in our sales revenue, showcasing the tangible impact of AI in driving business growth.

Josh Ladick, President, GSA Focus

Canva AI boosts design productivity

Canva has a range of features designed to enhance business productivity, including a user-friendly interface, diverse templates for various business needs, collaboration tools for team projects, and brand kit options for consistent branding. Its extensive library of images, fonts, and design elements simplifies content creation for marketing materials, presentations, and social media, making it an invaluable tool for businesses aiming to maintain a professional appearance while saving time and resources.

The text-to-image feature is another standout of this platform where you can add an AI-generated image to anything you’re working on.

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Canva review:

Our team uses Canva almost every day to manage design tasks in our business. Canva has recently added AI capabilities that have significantly increased our productivity. For instance, Canva’s AI-powered apps, such as bulk-create, have streamlined our content creation process. Before, designing marketing materials would take hours. Now, with the likes of bulk create, we simply input our content, and it automates the bulk creation of our social posts based on the information we provide.

This tool has not only saved us time but also improved the consistency and quality of our visual content across different platforms. It’s a game-changer for businesses without a dedicated design team, allowing us to focus more on strategy and less on the nuances of design. Canva’s AI integration really highlights how incorporating AI tools into business operations can lead to significant gains in efficiency and output.

Dr. Mark Farrell (FIA), Founder, CEO, Associate Professor & Actuary, ProActuary Jobs

The future of AI tools in business: What to expect

• A glance at the future trends of AI in businesses
• Staying tuned with the freshest advancements in AI tools

Predicted trends in AI tools for business

AI’s rapid development is geared towards significant efficiency refinements, automation, and advanced analytics. Combining AI and data makes your business flexible, adaptable, and innovative.

In the future, AI will simplify data analytics, letting businesses quickly and accurately analyze complex sets of data. AI will drive automation to new levels, executing tasks with precision, reducing human errors, and improving operational efficiency.

AI will take up higher-level decision-making tasks, analyzing complex data sets to develop business strategies. The predictive analysis feature can help anticipate market trends and customer behavior in even more ways.

How to stay updated with the latest AI tools for business

In a perpetually evolving AI environment, it’s crucial to stay updated. The process involves continuous learning, subscribing to tech newsletters, and attending relevant industry seminars.

Adopt a mindset of lifelong learning. It can be through online learning platforms or comprehensive research by reading related articles, whitepapers, and case studies.

Tech newsletters often offer first-hand information about the latest AI developments. By subscribing, you can stay ahead of the curve. Also, regular participation in AI seminars and conventions broadens your knowledge and provides networking opportunities.

The new chapter in your productivity journey

The implementation of AI tools does not just improve business productivity but has revolutionized it – streamlining processes, enhancing customer experiences, and driving data-driven decisions. From smarter scheduling to efficient project management using Trello AI-powered tools, the transformation will be profound.

Remember, the shift in productivity isn’t just about the AI tools we use, it’s also about how business owners adapt and integrate these tools into our daily operations.

So, what’s your first step? Try out one or two of these AI tools, and see how they fit within your business ecosystem. Every business is unique, and the right balance of AI will differ—experiment with these transformative tools and find your unique equilibrium.