AI solutions for businesses:
What options are available, and where do they make sense?
It’s no longer a secret: without AI solutions, businesses will soon run out of steam when it comes to competitiveness. Even those who have buried their heads in the sand in the face of the (perceived) AI avalanche should pull them out now at the latest and get an overview.
It quickly becomes clear that AI solutions for businesses can solve many typical challenges, such as process automation and efficient data processing – but only if they are used correctly. So how can businesses find out which AI software solution really offers an advantage and what is important for a successful implementation?
Our key takeaways:
- Currently, AI solutions primarily relieve companies of tedious work such as repetitive or data-intensive tasks.
- AI solutions can be a real game changer in terms of the shortage of skilled workers, making relevant business cases all the more important.
- With customized AI consulting, you can find an area of application for an AI solution with real added value.
What are AI solutions?
The best-known tool is, of course, ChatGPT – but it is by no means the only one. Deepseek from China and Mistral from France are other prominent examples. AI solutions use intelligent systems and machine learning to automate processes, analyze data, and optimize decisions. They can recognize patterns, make predictions, and perform human-like tasks, thereby increasing efficiency, reducing errors, and gaining new insights.
- Weak AI: This type of AI specializes in a specific task such as image recognition or language processing. Without real understanding, it uses algorithms and patterns to solve clearly defined problems.
- Strong AI: This type of AI has human-like cognitive abilities and can solve a wide range of problems by learning independently. AI that can solve tasks without specific programming still exists only in theory.
- Super AI: This AI is also still hypothetical. It would surpass human intelligence and, for example, conduct independent research.
When we talk about AI solutions for businesses today, we are therefore referring exclusively to weak AI, or more precisely, generative AI (GenAI), which uses statistical methods to create new content such as text, images, and music. It uses large amounts of data and recognized patterns – think ChatGPT or OpenAI. The label “intelligence” should therefore be used with caution.
How can an AI solution really help your company?
What AI already does extremely well is relieve your employees of tedious tasks and perform them more efficiently and with fewer errors. Among other things, AI solutions offer real advantages for companies in the following areas:
- Process automation: When artificial intelligence provides solutions for repetitive tasks such as data analysis, customer inquiries, or invoice processing, your skilled workers have more capacity for strategic activities.
- Cost reduction: Process optimization and automation, as well as a lower error rate with the help of AI solutions, can reduce operating costs.
- Better decision-making: AI software for businesses can analyze large amounts of data in real time, recognize patterns, and make more accurate predictions, e.g., for risk assessment in finance.
- Stronger customer loyalty: AI solutions for businesses, such as virtual assistants and chatbots for round-the-clock support or personalized product recommendations, increase customer loyalty and sales.
- Efficiency: Through forecasting, AI solutions can identify bottlenecks and save unnecessary costs. Working more efficiently can also be a matter of life and death for a company in view of the shortage of young talent.
- Greater innovation potential: Special AI software for businesses can help develop new products and services, e.g. through automated design suggestions.
- Advantages for IT security: Appropriate AI solutions for businesses can detect suspicious activity at an early stage and analyze threat patterns to prevent cyberattacks.
Where can AI software be used in your business?
And now let’s get specific: What are the areas of application for AI software in companies, and which tools are capable of solving your current challenges? Here are a few examples…
The tools available on the market cover many areas of application to a greater or lesser extent, but none of them cover individual workflows. That is why it often makes sense to use a customized, centralized tool (e.g., based on ChatGPT, Deepseek, Mistral, or others) that maps real use cases from your company.
Use case for AI solutions? Accounting in companies
When it comes to introducing AI in companies, it is best to start with a clearly defined use case. Accounting is a good example here because many processes are routine and can be automated in a meaningful way:
Initial situation
Accounting involves many time-consuming routine tasks that take up capacity for value-adding work. Manual entry and verification of invoices and financial transactions are also prone to errors, resulting in high costs for rechecking and corrections.
AI solution
With the support of an AI solution, you can automate document recognition and extract relevant data so that accounting entries can be created after automatic categorization and invoices can be assigned to projects. This does not necessarily require completely new accounting software if, for example, you integrate AI tools into existing ERP systems – as already described in the hybrid model.
Your Benefits
It must be clear that there is currently no AI solution that can do everything for your company – human control points are necessary and important. However, in line with the Pareto principle, the tool can reduce the time required by 80 percent, giving your employees more time for other tasks while improving your tax compliance.
Start your AI journey with a concrete business case
So what is the best approach for implementing artificial intelligence in your company? First, you need a concrete business case – a clearly defined use case where optimizing processes really pays off for your operational business. You can find this by asking yourself the following questions:
- In which area of your business would introducing AI solutions be most profitable? Wherever processes are inefficient and error-prone, critical data is processed, repeatedly maintained manually, or many hours are wasted on repetitive tasks.
- What specific AI solutions are available for companies and what options do you have? Sometimes standard tools meet your requirements, but often it makes sense to supplement them with customized tools.
- When does it make sense to seek external support and which partner is best suited for this? Simply mapping the current state using AI solutions is not sustainable. Riwers can help you discover untapped potential in an AI workshop, for example, and also support you in developing and introducing the appropriate tools.
Get started and leverage expert knowledge: How to find the first AI solutions for your company
You don’t need to understand AI in detail. It is much more important that you know your company. You know which areas need greater efficiency and lower costs in order to remain competitive.
