Of late, artificial intelligence or AI has taken the digital world by storm. Everyone seems to be exploring it to improve the performance of their websites, marketers, and webmasters alike. AI has created such excitement because it can simplify complex processes, automate tasks, and analyze complex data sets. The most significant advantage is that AI technology can perform all complex tasks accurately and faster than the manual approach.
During the initial years of AI, it was resisted by industry professionals because everyone took it as a threat to the traditional workforce. However, over time, people were convinced that AI enhances the workforce’s productivity and can even substitute it. Based on statistics of 2019, AI adoption is becoming more and more evident. Here are the main focus points to consider:
- Businesses that believe AI will give them a certain competitive advantage – 84%
- Businesses that believe AI must feature on their list of strategies – 83%
- Businesses that believe AI will guide them while venturing into new businesses – 73%
Even though artificial intelligence is a huge topic to cover in one article, we shall try to find out how AI can enhance your business website. Here are the most prominent ways to incorporate AI into your business plan.
Chatbots
Chatbots are nothing new for webmasters or developers as they have been in use for over a decade. However, there were certain limitations when it came to chatbots as they could answer only specific questions that were provided to them beforehand.
However, the recent advancements made in natural language processing and AI have entirely changed how chatbots work. These chat applications can now understand natural human conversations just like we experience with Amazon Alexa or Google Home. Thus, without taking care to formulate our questions, we can ask them anything to which the Chatbots shall provide relevant answers.
The benefits of AI-powered bots go beyond answering FAQ. Studies show that bot integration can increase sales by approximately 67%. This notion might be especially true when consumers contact vendors through their social media accounts. If they do not get a response immediately: they might be willing to explore other providers. When the reaction to requests is immediate, the customer is less likely to turn the other way. However, while chatbots can be extremely useful in increasing sales and staff management of incoming queries, only 14% of large companies plan to integrate AI-based solutions. Why? It appears that 87% of people still prefer human interactions. So, some organizations, especially startups, might not be willing to spend so many resources on polished AI experience.
Thus, you can easily develop messenger bots or go for popular ones like Botsify, IBM Watson Assistant, Landbot.io, etc. for your website. These AI-powered Chatbots are capable of performing a variety of tasks, which would not only add value to your website but your organization as well.
Smart Searches
Google is rapidly changing the way we search for information, and voice search is gaining popularity. Even though voice search was launched a couple of years ago, it’s under a constant refinement process. In its present form, voice search on Google has become really intelligent. In this case, AI paired with natural language processing is the acting force behind the voice search.
You can add similar search systems to your websites and offer excellent search and user experience to your customers. Integrating the voice search with chatbots is another feature that you can explore and add to your website. However, it would help if you also considered the website optimization before going down the voice search rabbit hole.
Comprehensive Analysis
Data related to user satisfaction is difficult to obtain, especially for new products or services. However, this problem can be easily solved by using artificial intelligence. AI-driven business applications can map user behavior based on their online search history and identify their satisfaction level.
These AI-based applications can collect vital information like the pages visited, time spent on each page, and users’ comments. This can be analyzed to provide detailed reports, and you can make changes to your marketing strategy accordingly.
Accessibility
Artificial intelligence enhances the accessibility of web pages by using technologies like natural language processing or speech recognition. You can always add extra intelligence to your website so that users can interact with their voice and navigate the website without a keyboard or mouse.
Gesture recognition can help people suffering from disabilities by gesturing with their head, eyes, and hands – it’ll all enhance your website’s accessibility. From the looks of it, there is a JavaScript hand gesture plugin that webmasters can consider. However, bear in mind that users would need to access web cameras for their actions to be interpreted.
Enhanced Shopping Experience
Online stores have penetrated almost every nook and cranny in most of the developed and developing nations. Now is the best time to offer enhanced shopping experiences to customers, and it’s possible only when you use artificial intelligence. Customers tend to enjoy shopping online, especially because they avoid all the hassle in physical stores. However, if your delivery terms and user interface are not liking, consumers will look for more optimized options. So, customers’ opinions are vital in determining which features need to be improved.
Artificial intelligence is the answer to this. It can replicate the physical shopping experience by offering the customers opportunities to determine whether the products suit them. For instance, AI is being used by various online eyewear stores to let customers find out how they would look while wearing particular glasses. They need to upload their photographs, and they can try different glasses to find out what suits them the best. AI is eliminating all the hurdles that were faced by online stores. Additionally, AI-driven websites can offer personalized recommendations to customers by using an advanced, intuitive user interface.
Is AI always the answer?
AI is an important aspect that businesses can use to advance further than their competitors. Allowing customers to try out glasses virtually might seem rather funny. However, it is very likely to generate a lot of attention, and people will be willing to give such technology a try. But AI integration should not overshadow other important aspects of your website. First of all, never neglect cybersecurity.
As AI integration grows, there seems to be very little done to protect consumers’ privacy. This technology generates a lot of user data, and its exploitation is not always clear. While security advocates warn people about digital privacy violations, people frequently turn to VPNs. Online VPN tools prevent the AI-supported digital world from pinpointing your locations and tracking online actions. Since data-protection has never been more important, we suggest that you consider encrypting all your web traffic. This decision will allow you to be anonymous online and skip user-profiling processes from marketers. As for webmasters, evaluate AI integration and its risks. For instance, reverse-engineering is a threat and could be turned against the AI features you add.
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Last Updated on February 3, 2021.
