Experts Explain How Gen AI Is Helping Businesses Automate Operations, Streamline Workflows

As businesses and industries continue to seek solutions to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and optimize workflows, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force, promising to reshape the very essence of how businesses operate in the digital age.

The rapidly evolving technology is ushering in a new era of automation and efficiency, offering unparalleled opportunities for organizations to thrive in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

This is evidenced by the 10 new generative AI features that Square launched on Wednesday (Oct. 18), aimed at assisting businesses of all sizes automate operations, streamline workflows, and ultimately save valuable time.

One of the standout features introduced by Square is the Menu Generator, which allows restaurants to create a comprehensive menu on Square’s platform in just a matter of minutes. This feature eliminates the need for manual menu creation, enabling restaurant owners to focus on other aspects of their business.

Square has also introduced AI-generated content creation tools, providing sellers with personalized email copy generated by Square Marketing. This feature simplifies email marketing efforts, making it easier and more efficient for businesses to engage with their customers.

Generative AI technology is also having an impact on application programming interface (API) documentation, Andrew Gleiser, the chief revenue officer at payments provider Aeropay, told PYMNTS in May, pointing to the work Stripe has done with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT-4’s capabilities into its workflows.

“There’s a huge opportunity to help customers deploy core features faster, and [for businesses] to repurpose staff to help with more advanced integrations,” Gleiser said.

Generative AI tools also have the potential to reduce legacy cost centers within organizations. By optimizing headcount for a more modern operating environment, businesses can benefit from the natural language processing improvements to documentation that generative AI offers.

The integration of AI into finance processes is also empowering finance teams to analyze data swiftly and take prompt action. In a recent conversation with PYMNTS, Veena Gundavelli, founder and CEO at Emagia, said that AI tools can process various finance documents, such as invoices, remittances, bank statements, and lockbox images, with ease.

“I think all of us are seeing generative AI explode in various different forms and bring out very creative ways to perform tasks and activities while improving efficiencies,” Gundavelli said.

Some of the most promising applications of AI, Gundavelli added, can be found within finance operations and accounting workflows.

“Whether it is an accounts receivable report, accounts payable report, treasury report, cash flow forecasting, or something else, there is a time lag between having a report from a financial system and being able to take action,” Gundavelli noted. “That time lag is typically spent in analysis, and many finance executives are slowed down in their decision making because they have to spend time on analysis.”

Overall, about 40% of executives have expressed a pressing need to embrace generative AI, with the generative AI market expected to surge from $40 billion to $1.3 trillion between 2022 and 2032.