TL;DR
- The perfect AI tools for SMEs have more than one core function, tailor their features to small businesses, have advanced AI capabilities, include various models and/or offer a generous free trial.
- Testing used a unified system rating tool performance, AI capabilities, user experience, prompt coherence, and onboarding across categories like productivity, video, images, and presentations.
- Productivity tools rank higher than generative ones as they're essential for all SMEs.
Our review contains a few affiliate marketing links. If you purchase any of the tools, we might receive a small commission.
Ok, it took us two years to write this top 10 list of the best AI tools for small businesses, but now it's bullet proof. Anyway, who could write it better than the website who's specifically addressing SMEs as their audience and themself is a small business? See, it had to be us.
Let's first discuss:
What should the best AI tools for SMEs have?
Or, what makes an AI tool an excellent tool for the small business owner? There are a few points we looked at and were especially favorable of tools that ticked off more than one:
1. They should have more than one core function
If you can use the tool for various areas of your business you can kill a whole school of birds with one stone and still you only have to onboard once, pay one subscription and connect it once. Just like our number one tool Motion, which will be able with a wide range of workflows. Artlist is another great example because it provides what usually at least three separate platforms would: 1. Gen AI for Image and video, 2. Sound and voice library 3. video stock footage, LUTs, and 50+ plugins for editing
2. They should specifically be made for SMEs
No one understands an SME like a company who's been studying small businesses for a while because it's their target audience. Just like Bonsai who have built their platform for us in mind, integrating lots of features specifically to our needs.
3. Should have extremely advanced AI features that save a lot of time
We are looking at AI tools here, so there better be AI under the hood and not just marketing fluff. Tools like Blackbox or Motion will deliver in this aspect like pros because their agentic AI actually works and take over the stupid jobs and beyond.
4. Tools that include various models/providers within one platform
Don't be surprised that you can't find ChatGPT in the list. I honestly still love it like a cousin, but I find Perplexity much more helpful for SMEs and a better deal because you can access all relevant LLMs through it.
5. Offer many free features with no time limit
Ok, it's not like you couldn't buy our heart with credits or free tiers. Tools like Canva do this very successfully and offer such a good product signing up for 12 bucks still seems like a bargain. Adobe Express on the other hand, offers a free go at video, presentation and image AI, which are not the biggest talents of Canva. Canva is much better for e.g. assembling things then generating out of the blue. For marketing material, have amazing templates and I also love their AI image editing suite. Their background remover is one of my favorites because it's perfect and so quick.
Speaking of free AI tools for small businesses: I recommend always testing a tool first for a month instead of committing for a whole year, especially in the times of AI. We as the customer can truly benefit from this race the AI companies are in right now. Except for maybe tools like CRM or analytics tools where the input is time consuming.
Generally, you'll see the generative AI tools or platforms rather in the second half simply because I think the productivity tools are helpful to EVERY small business, even if they don't have a social media presence.
How I tested the best AI Tools for SMEs
All of the tools you can find here have been tested for other AI tool categories. This is basically a medley of the best tools from AI Productivity Tools, Video Generators, Image Generators, Accounting AI Software, LLMs, Presentation AI and Note Takers. To level them evenly I rated them with a unified rating system which considered:
Tool Performance: This is overall how well did the aI-powered tool perform? Did it perform well on a number of differing tasks? I wanna see real time, built-in, streamlined success.
AI Capabilities: Tells us aboutt the AI horsepower behind each tool. AI can help be efficient, or right away take over like an AI assistant. Count on high numbers here; otherwise, it wouldn't be in the top 10 AI tools that help businesses succeed.
User Experience: Is it easy to work with this tool or a frustrating experience? We consider navigation, clarity of the dashboard and over all convinience for the small business leader.
Prompt Coherence: How well was my prompt considered for the output and during the task? Was the AI able to consider details in my prompt?
Setup/Onboarding: Simply put: How easy is it to get started with this tool?
A few more favorable mentions that didn't make it into the top 10 of best AI tools for SMEs:
Clickup is great for simple project management and is one of the most popular office tools. In fact, my team and I use it for follow-up task assignment. We're working on the entirely free plan, which is sufficient for most small teams.
Genspark is a toolbox for many AI applications for example for AI writing, marketing campaigns and you can also connect it as an AI chatbot
Manus is another AI Agent that can significantly enhance productivity and is very similar to Blackbox.
Alright, these tools make it easy to get started with AI. Whether you're looking for AI assitant features to take over routine tasks, simple business operations, or the best free Ai tools for business, you'll love this list. If you're new to AI or even have a new business, discover the top ai tools with me.
