Most, if not all, business owners will have heard about artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, a survey in 2025 found that more than three-quarters of organizations use AI in at least one function. This staggering statistic displays how effective AI has proven to be, and it may become a must-have very soon.
But this information can make some businesses uneasy, especially if they are unsure how such a tool can be beneficial. To these companies, it might be necessary to look at the business workflow and determine where exactly AI would prove the most useful – and it will be helpful.
Fortunately, this post has explained three key steps that business owners should understand to ensure the effective use of AI streamlines their workflow.
Identify Goals and Needs
Clear goals are vital before implementing artificial intelligence, particularly as aligning AI initiatives with business objectives will lead to more focused implementation. If you do not identify your goals, then you risk the AI project lacking impact and failing actually to address business problems. Being ill-prepared could result in a lack of measurable progress and wasted resources.
With this in mind, you must assess your current processes to find inefficiencies and define clear business objectives using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) approach. Key areas to examine include time-consuming tasks in the workflow that AI can automate, such as content creation or data processing. You should ensure these problems can be translated into clear objectives, such as enhancing operational efficiency or reducing costs.
Select and Implement AI Tools
When you understand your business’ goals and needs, it will be easier to choose the right AI software or tools to meet demands. The right AI tools will free up your employees to focus on other tasks, provide scalability for business growth, and support innovation. This can be achieved in various ways, such as automating repetitive tasks and providing data-driven insights.
Researching your options is necessary at this stage, particularly if you want a tool that can integrate seamlessly with your current software and platforms. Several tools and platforms can be explored, but you must keep in mind your specific goals and technical requirements. Some of the most important factors to consider include the cost, ease of use, and security of the tool.
For example, ServiceNow offers an AI-enabled platform to automate processes, create opportunities for innovation, and predict problems. It offers AI agents that take action on the company’s behalf and use real-time data to power analytics and workflows on one platform. It will also simplify the integration process, allowing seamless connection of AI with your existing systems without any hassle.
Leverage AI for Specific Tasks
Integrating specialized AI tools can make the overall workflow of a business most efficient and intelligent. This means it will move beyond simple rule-based automation; instead, it will deliver actionable outcomes and handle complex processes. While freeing up human workers to focus on higher-value tasks, the AI-driven workflow will take over decision support, predictive maintenance, and analysis of unstructured data, among other tasks.
As you should have already selected the right AI tools for your business, you should ensure your team is adequately trained to understand how to use them. It is also worthwhile showing how their roles will adapt with this new software at hand. This step can be assisted by starting small with AI solutions and gathering feedback to redefine the system before a wider rollout is completed.
To conclude, using artificial intelligence to streamline workflows in a business could be considered vital by some companies. AI has proven to be useful in various areas of business, and those not making the most of this software are missing out. Thankfully, by using the tips outlined in this post, you can ensure that AI will simplify your workflow from now on.
