Everything you need to know about the impact of AI on the SAAS industry

Eman Nuur
5 min readOct 22, 2022

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We have all been hearing the words artificial intelligence and SAAS (software as a service) flying around the internet space recently. Let’s dive into this trendy topic and talk about the impact of artificial intelligence on SAAS.

Gone are the days when we would see robot maids in aprons preparing a wholesome dinner for a family in a 90’s movie. Artificial intelligence is now widely dominating cyberspace and technology and is speculated to both disrupt and improve the SAAS industry.

It should be noted that experts such as Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google have explained that ‘artificial intelligence will have a more profound impact on humanity than fire, electricity and the internet’.

AI continues to aid multiple processes in a variety of human activities. These activities include the processes of the health sector, social interactions and entertainment processes.

AI improves SAAS businesses and their processes by including various functions and features that not only replace but sometimes outperform human capabilities. AI performs easy yet tedious analytical mechanisms and therefore provides more time for people to execute high-level tasks.

Multiple SAAS companies have utilised AI and have shared their results. Former 2021 Cloud award winner Moogsoft demonstrated impressive use of AI for SAAS companies when implementing AI within their cloud computing services. It proved to be a trusted AI driven SAAS company which provides an amazing consumer experience and automation of services.

What AI offers to a SAAS company is enhanced efficiency and security. This includes improving the user experience, brand loyalty and cutting costs whilst increasing revenue, this is pivotal for businesses so it’s no surprise that many SAAS businesses nowadays are created and developed with AI features. Let’s explore the impact of AI on SAAS businesses.

AI technology offers faster solutions

AI can speed up the processes of different areas of a SAAS business. In the sales area of a SAAS business, lead generation and validation can often take more time than converting, when AI is involved it will filter down a variety of options based on a certain criteria preserving the most promising options. This frees up a little time for the sales area of a SAAS company to focus on stimulating more revenues. This is accomplished through AI’s machine learning and natural language organisation. AI shortlists the leads with the highest probability of being successful through their search and purchase history and other external patterns.

The impact of AI speeding up and delivering SAAS services quicker through programming has its perks and its limitations. If there is a potential glitch or a glitch that impacts all users, resolving these technical issues can be very costly. The other limitation of AI on SAAS businesses to consider is the potential liability issues to consider. However, the ability to deploy faster can be a definite benefit and if you’re in a competitive market implementing AI features can make the difference between leadership and followership.

Let’s take a look at a SAAS company that is thriving using AI. Vidado is a SAAS company that offers AI-based services to pull data from any virtual channel, including handwritten documents or other paper files and folders. Their software is created to smoothen the transition from paper to digital workflow with maximum speed and accuracy. Companies like New York Life, FDA, Metlife, and others actively utilised this cloud-based platform for their business operations. AI allows this company to provide software services that build applications easily and effectively. It includes an extensive team of expert data scientists with machine learning to help other companies’ employees perform more efficiently at a rapid speed.

Improved Data Security

One massive security risk users face when providing cloud-based services like SAAS is a data security risk. Stolen data or leaked data from a SAAS company completely ruins the reputation that they spent years building. AI can resolve this issue because it helps to secure data with a variety of methods such as activity detections and authorisations.

SAAS businesses can integrate AI with implementing authorisations to ensure only a specific group of people can access certain data, which is integral for the company. Examples of integrations include biometric authorisation among others, which may come with having passwords.

With its contemporary capabilities, AI can also help in learning how cybercriminals work, which may help to identify and block attempts of cyber attacks. Such detection and blocking may be really crucial for SAAS businesses for beating competition. Even though machine learning today needs tons of data to be learned for it to be beneficial, this feature of AI in cybersecurity shows promising potential for SAAS businesses.

Better customer service and experience

The phrase ‘the customer is always right’ comes to mind when thinking of a customer’s experience with any business. The first assumption about the impact of AI on the customer service part of a SAAS company, is probably that it’s complicated but it’s surprisingly positive. AI has also demonstrated that it can be excellent in assisting and managing customer relationships in a variety of ways. With the assistance of AI, SAAS businesses can implement hyper-personalisation giving their clients a more flexible usage of the software they are helping based on their more targeted needs. With a variety of options in the user interface, many clients may be overwhelmed in finding what fits their criteria. We should also consider that with AI’s predictive analysis, businesses may suggest clients in order to select and execute projects.

Let’s not forget AI-powered virtual assistants, chatbots are a common but perfect example to talk about. AI powered chatbots are available for assistance 24/7, often the chatbots are employed to assist pre-determined and common problems of SAAS clients. This is incredibly beneficial for SAAS businesses as hiring virtual assistants can be costly considering that SAAS businesses operate globally and requires work around different time zones. AI powered virtual assistance does not remove the need for human virtual assistants and the jobs available to them, but it does decrease the time and cost of assisting SAAS clients with easy yet repetitive queries and problems that most of them come across.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence when combined with SAAS, creates a more efficient service for clients and the business itself. As artificial intelligence progresses and becomes more popular, we can say that the impact on the SAAS industry is positive and with the help of AI the future of the SAAS industry is bright.

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