{"id":812908,"date":"2025-02-21T08:50:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T06:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=812908"},"modified":"2025-02-21T08:50:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T06:50:23","slug":"ai-tools-for-south-african-small-businesses-powered-by-mtn-business-and-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/812908\/ai-tools-for-south-african-small-businesses-powered-by-mtn-business-and-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"AI tools for South African small businesses \u2013 Powered by MTN Business and Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>AI, particularly GenAI, offers huge benefits to South African small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is according to Winston Ritson, AI consultant at MTN Business, who explained that GenAI is no longer just for larger enterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtnbusiness.co.za\/en\/Pages\/Business-Unboxed.aspx?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Articles&amp;utm_campaign=MTN+Business+Partner+Content+&amp;utm_term=February+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Click here to learn more about using Microsoft Copilot in your small business.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGenAI has matured into a SaaS-type service, where companies can simply purchase a month-to-month subscription or benefit from AI-powered tools as part of a broader tech suite,\u201d said Ritson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said that while one often hears of ambitious and large-scale use cases for AI, the reality is its biggest value to small businesses lies in handling repetitive and rudimentary tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ritson provided several examples where AI can help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Scanning unread emails to find customer complaints.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Generating an ordered task list for the day ahead.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Drafting a basic legal document.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Turning a summary into a formal email.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLots of the best AI use cases for small businesses will involve a standard set of prompts you can run daily,\u201d said Ritson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Microsoft Copilot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When choosing the right AI tools for your small business, you must consider what is available within your preferred productivity suite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft Copilot is a standout example, as it is native to Windows 11, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams &#8211; important software for small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only does this make it easier to start using AI, but it also ensures that your AI tools are inherently integrated into the rest of your ICT ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another major advantage of Microsoft Copilot is the anonymised training data it has from millions of small businesses across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThrough this data, Copilot has learned how small businesses typically need to run to be productive, and where businesses can save energy by deploying AI tools and agents,\u201d said Ritson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ritson highlighted the power of Copilot\u2019s AI agents within Microsoft Teams, as an example, explaining how these can be created for specific repetitive tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This includes automatically replying to certain chats, searching Microsoft Teams for specific alerts, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">MTN Business and Microsoft<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>MTN Business is a trusted Microsoft advisor in South Africa and can help your small business leverage Microsoft Copilot\u2019s impressive AI capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can take advantage of a 3-day, obligation-free readiness assessment from MTN Business, which will determine how Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 can unlock value in your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft Copilot is also included as part of MTN Business Unboxed &#8211; a bundle of solutions focused specifically on empowering small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This bundle includes connectivity, Microsoft 365, domain registration (if needed), and more \u2013 everything you need to take your small business to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtnbusiness.co.za\/en\/Pages\/Business-Unboxed.aspx?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Articles&amp;utm_campaign=MTN+Business+Partner+Content+&amp;utm_term=February+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn more about Microsoft Copilot and MTN Business Unboxed.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advanced solutions like Microsoft Copilot let you leverage powerful AI capabilities to improve productivity in your small business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":812909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[8556,169,19881,1019],"class_list":["post-812908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-ai","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-copilot","tag-mtn-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812913,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812908\/revisions\/812913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}