Doubting AI’s Impact? 5 Benefits that Prove it's a Must for Modern SaaS Solutions

Every new technology faces its share of doubters.

For instance, when the telephone emerged in the late 1800s, William Henry Preece, Chief Engineer of the British post office claimed, “The Americans have need of the Telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.”

Fast forward to today, and you can see how that perspective aged.

Just as with the telephone, many people question Artificial Intelligence (AI)’s relevance to the future of Software as a Service (SaaS).

Now, don’t get me wrong.

Looking through the telescope before leaping is a smart move for every SaaS company, especially when implementing new technologies.

However, AI isn’t just another tech fad. It’s already solved real-life problems for over 250 million people since 2023.

Neglecting it today means potentially depriving your users of interesting features like the personalized experiences they now expect. And with your competitors already riding the wave, you might be stuck with a pager while others enjoy instant messaging.

If you’re still doubting AI’s potential impact on your SaaS product, here are five benefits that prove it is a must for modern SaaS solutions.

TL;DR:

• AI technologies can analyze and glean insights from large data sets in record time

• These insights can help you personalize every aspect of your product’s user experience

• AI’s ability to handle repetitive tasks preserves your human resources for high-value strategic tasks

• You can improve your SaaS product’s cybersecurity with AI technologies through advanced threat detection, user behavior analytics, and automated responses.

Hyper-personalization at Scale

A 2023 McKinsey Research claims that 71% of consumers look forward to having personalized interactions with businesses. The report also shows that 76% of consumers will be frustrated by interactions that lack such personalization.

Why do you think that is?

There’s an apparent overload of information from various brands competing for a user’s attention. As a result, most users are searching for solutions that cater to their unique needs specifically. Therefore, tailoring your SaaS platform to match each target customer’s preferences and unique needs is the way to go.

So, how will integrating AI into your SaaS platform help you achieve this?

AI algorithms are capable of analyzing large datasets accurately and quickly. Apply them to your customer data and you get accurate insights about customer behavior patterns and individual preferences. You know exactly what they crave, and you can sell it to them

Using these insights, you can personalize your SaaS product’s experience and offerings. The possibilities with hyper-personalization at scale are just endless. You can:

• Launch highly targeted marketing campaigns

• Customize email campaigns

• Deliver tailored content to different users.

TikTok is a prime example of a SaaS platform that leverages AI for hyper-personalization at scale. Each TikTokerr’s “For You” page contains a unique content collection assembled based on the user’s interactions in terms of likes, comments, shares, and views.

The platform’s AI algorithm analyzes these data points and predicts each user’s behavior. It then delivers highly personalized content to each user based on these insights. This high-scale hyper-personalization contributes significantly to TikTok’s success.

Your SaaS product can benefit from hyper-personalization at scale too.

Enhanced Efficiency and Automation

Integrating AI into your SaaS platform gives your users a “dedicated office assistant” who tirelessly manages their mundane tasks and paperwork. They, on the other hand, get to play “senior executives” brainstorming innovative strategies.

For instance, you can streamline workflows on SaaS apps like project management tools that involve data entry and reporting tasks.

Many SaaS products help users perform both basic and complex business functions efficiently. However, AI’s emergence has created an opportunity to further optimize these processes and perform them with an even lesser amount of time and resources.

It reduces the need for human effort.

For instance, Zendesk’s AI agents help businesses deliver a better user experience. These AI agents respond to customer queries and inquiries even when human agents are offline. As a result, these businesses can meet up with high demand.

The fact that these AI agents are capable of learning from past experiences makes it easy for them to improve their responses and overall performance with time.

Informed Decision Making

Powering your SaaS product with AI capabilities makes it easy for users to glean insights from puzzling technical data in record time. AI can identify trends, patterns, and insights humans might struggle to detect.

As such, AI provides much-needed foresight in today’s SaaS landscape.

Instead of spending time trying to make sense of data, users can focus on more strategic decision-making processes.

Salesforce is an excellent example of a SaaS product that leverages AI to help users make informed decisions.

The all-in-one CRM platform for small businesses has built a solid reputation for helping small businesses find more prospects, close more deals, and deliver awesome customer experiences. However, by powering its platform with its proprietary Salesforce Einstein AI, Salesforce has been able to help its users do this more efficiently by:

• Helping sales representatives anticipate sale opportunities so they can prepare accordingly

• Making customer service teams more proactive by resolving issues promptly.

• Providing customer insights that help marketing representatives design better experiences

The effect on output has been astonishing!

For instance, 83% of sales teams with AI experienced revenue growth while only 66% of teams without AI experienced the same according to Salesforce’s Sixth State of Sale Report.

When quizzed about the specific ways AI impacted their success, these professionals highlighted sales forecasting accuracy and the ability to understand customer needs as two of five major areas. These responses underline AI’s relevance to decision-making in the current SaaS market.

You need to be able to gauge your target customer’s sentiment and identify their major areas of needs before presenting your solution. Furthermore, you need to forecast potential pipeline red flags to formulate revenue-generating sales strategies.

Integrating AI into your SaaS platform is a smart way to do that.

Better Customer Experiences

According to Salesforce’s sixth edition State of the Connected Consumer report, 88% of consumers claim they’re more likely to make repeat purchases due to good customer service. Little wonder, Jens Krueger, Workday’s CTO for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, says “Customer experience is our main key performance indicator (KPI), rather than revenue.”

So, you get the idea: a positive customer experience is vital to your SaaS platform’s success.

But what does a positive customer experience entail?

Some common characteristics include:

• Efficiency: Your product has to solve customer problems quickly and seamlessly.

• Customization: Customers should feel that your services and communication are tailored to their needs.

• Genuine care and concern: Customers should be convinced that you’ve been actively listening to their issues and needs

• Communication and Feedback: There should be a clear two-way communication channel through which you ensure and gauge satisfaction.

• Support: Assist them through any technical or non-technical issues.

In a nutshell, delivering a positive customer experience means making your customers happy at every interaction with your product and brand.

So, how can AI help you deliver a positive customer experience?

By facilitating the points listed above!

Hotjar is a SaaS platform that gets this concept to the T.

The platform helps website owners understand the behaviors of their site’s users. And user surveys are one of the ways Hotjar gets accurate data for measuring satisfaction.

However, these can be arduous for the users!

So, Hotjar helps its users avoid the manual work involved in the survey process by integrating AI into its platform.

The Hotjar AI assistant helps users handle the manual tasks involved in writing the surveys, analyzing the responses, and figuring out the next steps. In this case, AI helps Hotjar solve its customers’ problems quickly and seamlessly — hence a positive experience for the customer.

AI can also help you deliver positive customer experiences by customizing your services and communications for each user’s needs. The popular video streaming platform, Netflix makes an excellent example of this possibility. The platform’s AI algorithm suggests movies and TV series for users based on their data.

Yet another common way AI delivers a wonderful customer experience is the provision of prompt and detailed responses to customer queries. Many businesses are now developing AI chatbots that do this using generative AI applications like chatGPT. These chatbots do more than just respond to queries. They can also help resolve common issues and guide customers through complex self-service processes.

The result?

Your customer service team drastically reduces the total number of support tickets. Additionally, they can quickly spot potential areas of complaint and tackle them in anticipation.

Improved Security

The following are some of the ways AI can make your SaaS platform safer for users.

• Threat detection: AI algorithms can analyze and identify unusual behavior patterns that may indicate a cyber attack.

• Advanced threat responses: In response to these anomalies, AI models can prevent any damages by either notifying your cybersecurity team or triggering standard response actions.

• Automation of security tasks: You can save valuable human resources for more complex security responsibilities by using AI to block malicious IPs, isolate infected systems, recommend and prioritize necessary security updates, etc.

• User behavior analytics: AI models can also analyze network behaviors and detect evolving threats continuously

All these security use cases stem from AI’s ability to scan and analyze large data sets at warp speeds.

With over 3,122 data breaches recorded in 2023, relying on manual threat detection methods these days is a lot like checking the weather with a sundial; by the time you notice the storm, it’s already raging.

You need a headstart to keep your users safe! And that’s what integrating AI gets you.

SaaS companies like DocuSign are already giving their users a more secure experience using AI. The SaaS platform helps businesses and individuals sign and send agreements regardless of their locations. However, there has been a need for digital signatures with an added identity verification that matches or exceeds face-to-face experience. And DocuSign is leveraging AI technology for this need.

The platform’s proprietary DocuSign ID verification for EU Qualified leverages AI technology, advanced liveness detection, and selfie videos for completing any Qualified Electronic Signature (QES)-mandated verification process. This technology helps different businesses minimize the chances of fraud and identity spoofing all thanks to AI.

Embrace the future with AI today!

The waves of innovation are crashing across the entire SaaS ecosystem right now. Just as a ship must adjust its sail to navigate the shifting winds, your SaaS company must also adapt to the emerging technological climate to stay relevant.

By embracing AI, you can deliver tailored experiences at scale, beef up security, and improve user experiences altogether.

Don’t stay stuck in the past — integrate AI into your SaaS product and sail confidently into the future.