July 22, 2023
The conversation around AI has shifted from "if" it will change business to "how" it already is. While the hype can feel overwhelming, the numbers tell a clear story: this isn't a passing trend. With the market for AI technologies projected to surge from $244 billion in 2025 to over $800 billion by 2030, the question for leaders isn't whether to adopt, but where to start.
The real value lies not in the technology itself, but in its practical application. The right tools act as a force multiplier, automating the tedious tasks that drain hours from your week, from crafting content and analysing data to personalising customer interactions. They free up your team's most valuable assets: their time, their strategic thinking, and their creativity.
We've moved beyond theory. Here are seven practical AI tools that are actively helping businesses streamline operations, reduce costs, and unlock new growth.
Best for: High-impact, on-brand presentations at scale.
Prezent’s AI presentation solution is designed to take the hassle out of business presentations. Instead of spending hours formatting slides, teams can focus on delivering clear, compelling stories that provide a competitive edge. Its AI agent, Astrid, turns prompts, files, and data into polished, on-brand presentations in seconds factoring in industry context, brand voice, and audience needs. The platform goes beyond automation with a complete toolkit.
Prezent.ai is already trusted by leading enterprises, and has been recognised among the Top 25 AI Companies of 2025 and awarded the Artificial Intelligence Excellence Award 2025.
Prezent.ai offers a free trial for all plans. For its business professional plan, the starting price is $40 per user per month. Larger teams and enterprises can get a custom quote by contacting the company directly.
Best for: Centralised knowledge management and project collaboration.
Notion AI extends the power of Notion’s all-in-one workspace with intelligent features that help teams capture knowledge, automate workflows, and move faster. It acts as a powerful business intelligence tool, leveraging advanced machine learning to synthesise complex information and provide actionable insights. Instead of juggling multiple tools for writing, research, note-taking, and project management, Notion AI brings everything into a single platform.
By centralising collaboration and embedding AI across every layer, Notion AI helps teams work with greater speed and precision while reducing reliance on multiple third-party apps.
Notion offers a free plan for individuals and teams, which includes a limited trial of Notion AI. Paid plans for teams start with the Plus plan at $10 per member per month, with AI included in the Business plan at $20 per member per month. Enterprise plans are available with custom pricing.
Best for: Versatile AI assistance for content creation, research, and communication tasks.
Generative AI is transforming business operations, and ChatGPT stands at the forefront of this change. As a versatile AI assistant, it helps teams work smarter across various functions. With built-in intelligence and customizable Agents, ChatGPT adapts to business needs—whether that’s drafting proposals, content generation, summarizing lengthy reports, generating code snippets, or powering customer support interactions.
By serving as an always-available assistant, ChatGPT reduces time spent on manual tasks and empowers teams to focus on high-value strategic work. For example, marketing teams can use it to craft compelling copy for ad campaigns and social media posts, while sales teams can use it to draft proposals, and customer support can use it to automate responses.
For ChatGPT, a free plan is available for individual use. Paid plans start at $20 per month for the Plus plan. The Business plan, designed for teams, starts at $25 per user per month when billed annually. For Enterprise-level solutions, you must contact the company for custom pricing.
Best for: Automating customer service and enhancing agent productivity.
Zendesk AI is the intelligent layer built into the Zendesk customer service platform, designed to help businesses manage customer conversations at scale. By automating routine inquiries and providing AI-powered assistance to human agents, it helps support teams work smarter and deliver faster, more personalised service.
Zendesk AI helps businesses boost satisfaction, improve retention, and free up valuable agent time for more complex customer needs.
Zendesk offers a free trial for its various plans. For its paid tiers, the starting price is for the Support Team plan at $19 per agent per month (billed annually). The more comprehensive Suite plans, which include AI, start at $55 per agent per month (billed annually), with custom pricing for larger enterprises.
Best for: Transforming complex data into actionable insights.
Tableau AI is a powerful AI-powered platform that brings generative AI to business intelligence. It democratises data analysis, allowing even non-technical teams to quickly find answers, generate visualisations, and get smart suggestions. By automating tedious tasks and providing intelligent guidance, Tableau AI helps businesses accelerate their time to insights and make more informed decisions.
By embedding AI across its platform, Tableau helps businesses move beyond static reports, making data insights a central, democratised part of daily workflows.
Tableau offers a 14-day free trial for its Tableau Cloud and Tableau Desktop products. For its paid tiers, pricing is based on user roles, with the Viewer plan starting at $35 per user per month (billed annually). The full Tableau+ AI-powered plan is available with custom pricing.
Otter AI positions itself as the #1 AI Meeting Agent, transforming how teams capture, process, and act on meeting information. By automatically joining calls or transcribing uploaded audio and video, Otter creates accurate transcripts, concise summaries, and actionable follow-ups. The platform provides real-time data on conversations as they happen, helping teams get insights and take action instantly.
With users reporting time savings of four or more hours per week, Otter helps teams focus less on note-taking and more on outcomes.
Otter AI offers a free plan for those who want to try the service with some limitations. For paid tiers, the Pro plan for individuals and small teams starts at $8.33 per user per month when billed annually. For larger teams, the Business plan starts at $20 per user per month when billed annually. For enterprise-level features, a custom quote is required.
Salesforce Einstein is the AI layer built into the Salesforce platform, designed to help businesses boost productivity, personalise customer engagement, and improve decision-making. By learning directly from CRM data and team activity, Einstein acts like an embedded data science partner—delivering predictions, recommendations, and automation at scale.
By embedding intelligence throughout the Salesforce ecosystem, Einstein enables organisations to engage with empathy, scale customer experiences, and maximise ROI from their CRM investment.
Salesforce does not offer a free or demo plan for its AI layer, Einstein. Instead, it is integrated into its paid CRM products.
Pricing for Einstein is an add-on to a base Salesforce license, which starts at $25 per user per month. The AI features themselves are typically included in higher-tier plans or purchased separately, with some add-ons like Einstein Conversation Insights starting at $50 per user per month when billed annually.
Businesses should consult with Salesforce sales teams for detailed pricing aligned to their CRM environment.
Forget about chasing the trendiest AI tools. The right choice comes down to one thing: which solution actually fixes your biggest business headaches?
Start by getting ruthlessly clear on where you’re losing time or wasting money. Is your team buried in manual task management instead of strategic work? Are they struggling to maintain a consistent brand voice across countless social media posts? Or perhaps they're wasting hours on slide design instead of leveraging generative AI for instant, on-brand drafts?
The power to leverage AI tools effectively comes from matching the right technology to your specific obstacle. Once you’ve named that specific pain point, then you can find the tool designed to solve it. The most effective choice is always the one that removes your biggest obstacle.
Salesforce Einstein is specifically built to enhance CRM functions. It helps by prioritising leads, predicting deal outcomes, and automating routine sales tasks, allowing your team to focus on building relationships and closing deals more effectively.
Otter AI is an excellent choice for improving meeting productivity. It automatically transcribes calls, creates concise summaries, and identifies action items. This frees your team from manual note-taking and ensures everyone is aligned on the next steps after a meeting.
For marketing content, a versatile tool like ChatGPT is extremely useful. It can help you brainstorm ideas, draft compelling ad copy, write social media posts, and even generate scripts for videos, all while maintaining a consistent brand voice.
Yes, the business-focused tools mentioned, such as Notion AI and Prezent.ai, are built with enterprise-grade security. They often have certifications like SOC 2 and provide features like data encryption and strict access controls to ensure your company's information remains protected.
Tableau AI is designed to make data analysis more approachable. It uses natural language processing, so your team can ask questions in plain English and receive easy-to-understand data visualisations and insights without needing advanced technical skills.
