7 Best AI Automation Agency Ideas to Start in 2024 (No Experience)

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Starting an AI automation agency in 2024 sounds exciting...but also kinda scary, right?

I get it. This whole "AI and automation thing" seems confusing. How do you even use AI tools to help businesses? What services can you offer? Will people pay for this?!

But here's the good news: starting an automation agency is totally doable, even if you're not a tech genius. There are so many ways AI can boost companies's efficiency and productivity.

In this article, I'll walk you through 7 realistic ideas to launch your own artificial intelligence automation agency in 2024. You don't need crazy coding skills or advanced degrees to get started.

I'll explain exactly how you can help businesses save time and money with AI-powered solutions.

So, if you're ready to start an exciting new AI business model in 2024 using automation solutions, let's GO!

What is an AI automation agency?

An AI automation agency is a business that helps other businesses automate tasks and processes using artificial intelligence technology. Rather than having employees manually perform repetitive tasks, an AI automation agency can build customized software bots that can do that work automatically.

This allows companies to reduce labor costs and improve efficiency.

The bots created by an AI automation agency are programmed with artificial intelligence, which means they can learn over time and improve at the tasks they're given without needing explicit reprogramming.

The goal is to let human employees focus on higher-value work requiring human judgment, creativity, and interpersonal skills.

Is an AI automation agency profitable?

Yes, it certainly can be, considering the huge benefits it brings to businesses. 

In the U.S., businesses that use automation are seeing a massive $195 billion jump in their monthly earnings. 

In the UK, this figure stands at £14 billion. [1]

That's a lot of extra cash! 

Why is this happening? Well, when companies use AI automation, they can do more work with fewer mistakes. 

As more companies see these benefits, they want to jump on the AI bandwagon. This is where AI automation agencies come in. 

They're the experts who set up these smart systems. And even if what you get paid to implement these systems is just a fraction of their profits, it's still a significant amount.

So, with more businesses looking to automate, these agencies have a lot of work – and that means good money.

7 AI automation agency services to offer in 2024

1. Automated referral system

The Problem

Businesses often miss opportunities to get referrals from satisfied customers after a purchase or project ends. However, these customers can be a great source of new leads since their network likely has similar needs.

Without a process to engage past customers, referral opportunities are missed, and growth slows.

What can you help?

A system automatically prompting customers for referrals when projects close can dramatically improve results. The system sends customized outreach based on data like purchase history to inspire referrals.

Responses are far higher than generic outreach when personalizing and automating this process. This gives the business a steady flow of qualified referrals.

How to deliver your service:

• Integrate a CRM system like Salesforce with an automation platform like Make. Set up a trigger so that when a customer's status is changed to "Completed" in the CRM, it activates the referral flow in Make.
• Build the referral flow on Make. First, use the CRM integration to pull in customer data like name, purchase history, interests, etc.
• Next, use a tool like Jasper (My Review here) or ChatGPT to generate customized referral prompt messages based on the customer data. The messages should be personalized and compelling.
• Add a step to send the referral prompt messages via the customer's preferred channel, like email or SMS. Tools like Mailchimp or Twilio can be integrated.
• Include a link to an online form where the customer can easily share contacts from their network who may be interested.
• Have a follow-up sequence over the next 7–14 days if the customer doesn't initially provide referrals. Craft new messages each time using the AI writing tool.
• When a referred contact is provided, automatically notify the sales reps with the lead's information. Sales can then reach out for a warm introduction from the customer.
• Finally, track referral results over time—number of referrals, conversations generated, deals closed from referrals, etc. Use this data to refine the messages and flows for greater success.

2. Appointment scheduling automation

What’s the problem?

Scheduling appointments with prospects is a huge time sink. The back-and-forth of finding an open time that works can eat up hours.

Even worse, no-shows from a lack of reminders lead to wasted time and lost opportunities.

Manually scheduling appointments simply doesn't scale as your business grows. But for consultations and meetings to drive revenue, you need a better solution.

What’s the AI solution?

Automated appointment scheduling is a game-changer. With the right software, your prospects can book times that work for both of you.

Appointment reminders and notifications also go out automatically by text and email. This drastically reduces no-shows and keeps prospects engaged.

Taking the manual work out of scheduling frees up your client's time for higher-value work. And their customers appreciate the convenience and organization.

How to deliver your service:

• Create a booking page with an appointment widget for prospects to self-schedule consultations.
• Allow syncing and scheduling across multiple calendars to find ideal times
• Set proper time zones and business hours for booking.
• Enable auto-reminders and notifications to reduce no-shows.
• Include functionality to reschedule or cancel meetings.
• Offer integrated video call links for online meetings.
• Build automation flows for confirmation emails, texts, and reminders.
• Tag booked appointments in CRM and associate booking info.
• Test thoroughly before launch to ensure the system works smoothly.
• Monitor bookings, no-shows, and time savings to refine the automation.

3. SOP search chatbot

What’s the problem?

Companies often create tons of SOP documents explaining policies, best practices, and how to complete tasks.

However, these documents get scattered across different drives and folders.

 Employees waste time searching for the right one. Without easy access, they may not follow proper procedures.

What’s the AI solution?

An SOP search chatbot makes all this knowledge accessible in one place. Employees can ask natural language questions to get the right SOP instantly.

For example:

"What's the refund policy?"

The AI chatbot can instantly provide step-by-step instructions from the knowledge base, ensuring employees follow accurate, up-to-date guidance.

How to deliver your service:

• First, work with the client to collect all existing SOP documents and organize them logically into a structured knowledge base.
• Next, use a conversational AI platform like Dialogflow to build the natural language interface.
• Train the chatbot to understand different employee questions and provide answers by pulling data from the knowledge base.
• Deploy the finished chatbot into internal communication tools like Slack or Teams that employees already use daily. This allows convenient self-service access.
• Monitor chatbot conversations to identify missing information gaps. Continuously expand the knowledge base over time as needed.
• Consider adding features like escalating complex questions to human agents or integrating with other systems like CRMs.
• Provide ongoing chatbot maintenance and improvement as part of a managed service agreement.

4. Restaurant chatbot system

What’s the problem?

Running a restaurant is hectic. Between serving customers, prepping food, and handling operations, there's hardly any time left to answer phone calls, emails, Instagram DMs from people asking about menus, making reservations, or dealing with issues.

It's tough trying to respond to all these different channels quickly and keep customers happy. And it stops staff from being able to focus on providing great in-person hospitality.

What’s the AI solution?

A customized chatbot that instantly answers the most common customer questions - like menu options, operating hours, and booking policies.

The bot can even check real-time availability and confirm table reservations, fully integrated with the restaurant's booking system.

By integrating the bot on major channels like WhatsApp and Instagram DM, customers can get quick answers and book tables 24/7 without waiting on hold or emailing back and forth.

This frees up restaurant staff to focus on hospitality and operations rather than draining their time responding to the same old questions and booking requests over and over again.

How can I deliver this service?

• Build a customized knowledge base covering menu options, hours, booking policies, dress codes - all common customer questions.
• Integrate the chatbot with the restaurant's reservation system for real-time availability checking.
• Deploy the chatbot on messaging channels like WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS, Facebook, and web chat.
• The chatbot instantly responds to common questions using answers from the knowledge base.
• For booking requests, it checks real-time availability in the integrated reservation system. If open tables, it confirms and books reservations immediately.
• Use analytics to optimize the chatbot based on metrics like response time, questions asked, bookings, and satisfaction.
• Provide easy access via links on the restaurant's website and social profiles.

5. Personalized cold outreach system

What’s the problem?

Businesses invest tons in leads, but struggle to convert them. Generic copy-paste emails just don't cut it anymore.

Prospects are bombarded daily and ignore anything that looks mass-produced.

What’s the solution?

By personalizing outreach using details like the prospect's role, interests, and LinkedIn profile, response rates skyrocket.

It feels like you're speaking directly to them rather than blasting their inbox.

I'll create tailored messaging for each lead using a mix of automation and human writing. This avoids a robotic vibe.

How to deliver your service:

• Integrate your CRM to access lead data like name, role, interests, company, and social profiles.
• Set up a workflow to pull lead data and use it to customize unique outreach sequences.
• Create compelling email with Smartwriter.ai and LinkedIn templates that can be populated with the lead's personal details.
• For each lead, the templates automatically get filled with their info to make a tailored message.
•  Automate the sending of personalized emails using SendNow.

6. Customized plan generator

What’s the problem?

Creating customized plans like diet and workout regimens requires a ton of hands-on work analyzing each client and hand-crafting programs.

As client demand rises, it doesn't scale to manually develop a unique plan for every new person. Quality and consistency often suffer, too, when experts rush through plans.

What’s the solution?

Luckily, AI gives us a way to transform this process - generating personalized plans automatically based on proven templates.

The system can learn patterns from thousands of past successful plans created by human experts. Then, it can pull the most relevant components together into customized plans in just seconds.

This makes every client feel special with a plan tailored just for them, while massively improving efficiency behind the scenes.

How to deliver your service:

• Collect at least 100 examples of successful plans created by your experts as training data for our AI.
• Ingest these examples into a dataset and use a platform like Google AutoML to train a custom machine-learning model.
• Build a simple web interface to capture client data like age, goals, preferences, etc., allowing the AI to tailor its suggestions.
• When a client enters their data, it calls the trained AI model to analyze their inputs and match them to relevant components from previous plans.
• The AI automatically generates a personalized plan recommendation by assembling applicable elements into a custom program.
• Clients get their tailored plans instantly on screen and as a shareable PDF output.
• Continuously retrain the AI with new data to improve recommendation accuracy over time.

7. Airbnb guest support chatbot

What’s the problem?

Airbnb hosts get bombarded with questions from guests about WiFi, check-in, amenities, etc. Answering quickly around the clock is exhausting.

This constant disruption ruins the Airbnb host experience. At scale, poor guest support also damages ratings.

What’s the solution?

Luckily, we can build a guest support chatbot powered by AI to handle common questions automatically around the clock.

The bot taps into a knowledge base to address frequent questions about listings so hosts don't have to be on-call. Guests get quick answers, improving the experience. Only trickier stuff gets elevated to the host.

How to deliver your service:

• Compile all the common questions and answers related to the Airbnb listing into a structured knowledge base.
• Build the chatbot on Dialogflow, training it to understand questions and provide answers by referencing the knowledge base.
• Refine the chatbot with extensive testing to ensure accurate responses to diverse questions.
• Integrate the chatbot with guest communication channels like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
• Provide instructions so hosts can demonstrate the chatbot to guests.
• When guests message the bot, AI allows it to address common questions automatically.
• Monitor chat logs to expand the knowledge base and improve the bot continuously.

How big is the AI automation market?

The market for AI automation tools and services is growing very quickly.

Major companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and IBM invest heavily in developing AI automation capabilities. And many other smaller startups are also popping up in this space.

It's estimated that spending on AI automation will reach around $300 billion globally by 2026. That's up from about $67 billion in 2021. So, the market is projected to grow by over 348% in just 5 years.

A key driver of this growth is that AI automation allows businesses to reduce labor costs, get work done faster, and operate more efficiently.

More and more companies are implementing these technologies to stay competitive.

While AI automation is getting a lot of hype, it's still in the relatively early stages of adoption.

But as the technologies improve and become easier to implement, the market is poised for massive expansion in the years ahead.

The Benefits of Starting an AI Automation Agency

For someone looking to start this type of agency, there are a few key advantages:

• There is huge growth potential as more businesses adopt AI automation. The market for these services is booming.
• Recurring revenue opportunities by charging monthly fees for maintaining and optimizing the AI systems.
• High profit margins since the main costs are software and cloud computing.
• There is a wide range of industries to target, like banking, healthcare, retail, and manufacturing.
• Low startup costs compared to other consulting agencies. Mainly requires computers and AI expertise.

The bottom line is that AI automation improves efficiency and reduces costs for businesses. Agencies that can deliver these solutions are poised for massive growth in the coming years.

This technology is still in the early stages (as of the time of writing), but the market outlook is very promising.

Conclusion

Launching an AI automation agency in 2024 puts you on the ground floor as chatbots and automation become the next big thing in online business.

You can help companies save tons of time on tedious tasks, freeing them to focus on innovation and strategy.

Though starting any business takes hard work, the ideas in this article give you a head start on offering high-value AI services.

By mastering these time-saving technologies early, you'll be seen as an forward-thinking leader in this space.

If you enjoy tinkering with new tech and helping businesses embrace AI's potential, now is the time to start skilling up.

Soon you too could run a thriving online agency making clever use of AI's time-saving superpowers!