Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a successful business that doesn’t use AI-driven tools. Virtual assistants, in particular, are next-generation products that can automate various daily tasks, making them invaluable for busy managers.
In this article, I’ll review the 12 best AI assistants and will explain how they can assist your daily workflow. Hopefully, you’re already using a few of them for operational and marketing procedures. If not, you should definitely add them to your toolbox!
What Exactly IS an AI Assistant?
As the name implies, an AI assistant is any software that can auto-complete tasks for your company. These programs can tackle numerous activities for you and your team, ranging from scheduling and organizing documents, automating meetings and phone calls, generating content and code, and simplifying your marketing.
The best thing about these tools is that most of them don’t require physical interaction. For example, if you’re using Siri or Alexa, you can give commands through speakers and access company documents within seconds.
Virtual assistants rely on a combination of artificial intelligence and natural language processing. They can understand your requirements and provide customized solutions that will fit your specific business needs.
General Productivity AI Assistants
AI-powered virtual assistants from this category allow you to perform all sorts of tasks. Devices like Amazon Alexa and Siri provide numerous basic and advanced features for your company, including fast emailing, scheduling, and organizing documents.
1. Google Assistant
As software that works in 80 countries and 30 languages, Google Assistant is a perfect solution for international teams. Your team can access it from any device, whether they’re using a personal computer, smartphone, Google Home, or watch. The best thing about it is that it can access apps such as Google Meet or Docs.
Google Assistant provides a wide range of functions, allowing you to book appointments, find stores, buy products, and more. Through it’s natural language processing, it can streamline communication within the team and even correct grammar during business correspondence.
You can also use this software as chatbot, of sorts. It can answer various questions that your team members might have, helping them focus on tasks that matter instead of browsing Google. The same technology works for your clients when they use your website and social media profiles.
2. Amazon Alexa
This personal assistant allows you to manage various business processes through simple voice interaction. You can find it to organize events, manage daily tasks, schedule appointments, start business calls, and execute other complex tasks.
In addition to its communication and scheduling features, the voice assistant also allows you to perform more business-oriented actions. For example, you can use Alexa to check how many units you have in the warehouse, access real-time sales data, and streamline invoicing.
The device integrates with major tools, including Skype, Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Office 365, Google G-Suite, Salesforce, and more. By combining these programs, you can significantly increase the usefulness of Amazon Alexa while making things easier for yourself and your team.
3. Microsoft Cortana
Microsoft Cortana is another general-purpose virtual assistant that can execute critical tasks for companies. Its main function is to connect users to their Microsoft 365, allowing them access to relevant digital documents. The software supports Windows 10, Bing Search, Outlook, OneDrive, Forms, and Teams.
Similar to Google Assistant and Alexa, Cortana helps with scheduling, organizing various document types, and answering emails. The digital assistant is especially great for boosting user experience while also helping people find your brand online. You can also use it to provide feedback to clients and tackle other repetitive tasks with ease.
4. Apple Siri
If you’re an Apple user, you’ll love this smart home device. Siri is available on various mobile devices, Apple TV, and CarPlay, and relies on artificial intelligence to execute various business tasks. By giving commands through smart speakers, you can schedule your meetings, organize digital documents, and much more.
Most of its key features are connected to phone and email communication. Apple Siri allows you to contact team members, clients, and suppliers without ever pushing a button. My favorite thing about the software is that it can perform web searches without physical input, something that can come in handy while traveling.
5. Motion
Motion is a perfect solution for all your administrative tasks, regardless of the industry or business you’re in. The software excels at organizing the team’s tasks, setting roles and responsibilities, and ensuring that the company always meets its deadlines.
My favorite thing about this complete scheduling assistant is that it uses artificial intelligence to optimize your work week. It puts emphasis on tasks that are more relevant to the company while pushing down those that aren’t as vital. As such, Motion can boost your customer experience and productivity tenfold.
Even if things go awry, Motion can adjust to this newfound situation. It can reshuffle your plans while accounting for your future needs. This intuitive platform can also asses every teammate’s workload. That way, you can see who is working like crazy and who is slacking.
Further Reading: 23 Free AI Tools for Marketing to Try Out Today
Business Productivity AI Assistants
Unlike the previous category of virtual assistants, business productivity software focuses on specific corporate tasks. These programs are fantastic for larger teams that tackle numerous tasks on a weekly basis, streamlining their operative workflow.
Further Reading: 25 Best AI Tools for Marketing and Business
6. ClickUp
ClickUp’s AI-powered features revolve around organizing projects and teams so you can always stay on top of things. Through the main dashboard, you can track task details and organize activities based on priority. You can also set goals, which are crucial for calculating bonuses and motivating your staff.
Advanced task tracking is especially nifty, helping you assess the performance of your employees. There’s also a cool feature that shows if a person is close to their maximum work hours, which can help manage a team’s burnout. Lastly, I need to mention that ClickUp provides templates making it easier to set up projects.
AI Meeting Assistants
Meeting assistants are a perfect solution for companies that rely on internal and external communication. They work with platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom, ensuring that you can manage your agenda, create meeting summaries, and gain detailed meeting insights.
7. Otter
The best thing about Otter, and its main selling point, is its summary function. The tool can generate excerpts of your meetings, allowing you to quickly go through all the ideas and concepts mentioned during the chat. You can also insert notes that will allow you to focus on the main talking points.
Recently, Otter has introduced a few interesting artificial intelligence features that will further improve customer experience. For example, you can now use the tool to search for answers to your questions, manage email interaction, and receive status updates. The virtual assistant also allows you to create talking points for the meeting.
8. Fireflies
Fireflies works like Otter in many ways. The platform creates summaries of your meetings, while also generating transcripts and analyzing engagement. I especially like the engagement metrics, allowing you to assess how many questions each participant asked and how much they talked.
Fireflies provides several action items, such as tasks and questions. The tool can help you find every filler word, date, time, pricing, and other metrics within the transcript, making it easier to focus on things that matter. Users can also add comments, reactions, and pins, as well as create soundbites.
I also love the fact the software can be integrated with major project management systems like Slack, Notion, and Asana. Like most assistants on the list, Fireflies allows you to organize tasks by issuing voice commands, something that can definitely come in handy when you’re super busy.
Further Reading: 25 Ways How to Leverage AI in Digital Marketing Today
SEO AI Assistants
These tools are godsent for marketing agencies. They allow you to perform search engine optimization in a few clicks by directly changing the website code and content.
9. Alli AI
Alli AI is probably the best virtual assistant for streamlining SEO. The software’s key features include bulk on-page optimization, real-time deployment, traffic optimizer, interlinking, schema markup, and live editor. The best thing yet is that the program works for both website code and content within CMS.
Besides automating and streamlining various tasks, Alli AI also comes with numerous summaries. You can track everything that’s happening on the website, from your links to traffic. As such, the tool not only works as a basic assistant but also as an all-in-one SEO platform.
Content Creation AI Assistants
Among other things, virtual assistants can help you create engaging content for your marketing channels. You can use them for social media posts, blog articles, emails, and just about any other written piece.
10. Jasper
If you’re looking for a comprehensive content assistant, you should definitely consider Jasper. The software supports all marketing and sales channels, generating human-like content based on a few short prompts. Besides generating posts from scratch, the virtual assistant can also create shorter paragraphs and rewrite content.
Perhaps the best thing about Jasper is that you can create messages according to your branding. There’s also a list of suggestions of what you can improve within the article, ensuring better optimization and engagement. Jasper also has project management features, making it ideal for larger teams.
The software integrates well with just every major text tool on the market. You can generate content while using Google Docs, Microsoft Word, as well as various social media platforms. That way, you can truly streamline your content creation without even having to access Jasper.
Further Reading: 13 Unbelievable AI Prompt Generators to Maximize Your AI Content Creation
11. CopyAI
CopyAI focuses on four main uses: social media posting, blogging, emailing, and translations. The software combines several natural language processing technologies, providing diverse outputs for its users. You can also integrate it with the biggest platforms, such as Instagram, Meta, Slack, and Google Docs, adding to its usefulness.
However, there’s much more to this virtual assistant than just content generation. For example, the software can work with minimal human input, only using URLs to create posts. CopyAI is fantastic for repurposing, and you’ll also get a lot of value from its competitive and website insights.
Further Reading: 25 Best AI Video Translators to Grow Your Audience
AI Assistants for Coding
Similar to content assistants, these tools can be used to simplify your coding process. With these tools, you can generate dozens of lines with minimal effort, which will save you a lot of money on bigger projects.
12. Tabnine
My favorite thing about Tabnine is that it auto-completes your codes as you type, helping you save time during your daily routine. Besides completing lines, the software can even tackle larger blocks of code by analyzing your natural language comments.
As the tool relies on natural language processing, it can understand how you communicate and will use these patterns to create customized code. With it, you can avoid any compliance and security issues, ensuring that you’re always legally safe.
Further Reading: 35 Recommended AI Tools for Business
Conclusion
Using AI-powered virtual assistants is vital if you want to remain competitive in a turbulent modern market. Most of this software requires minimal interaction to execute tasks, allowing you to schedule and organize various tasks with your voice alone.
I use most of these products on a daily basis, so I can automate some of my workflow. Even checking the weather before a business trip can provide some value, especially if you have your hands tied with other tasks.
Hero Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash
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