For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), integrating generative AI (gen AI) into their operations presents a unique opportunity to improve efficiency and scale operations without increasing headcount. In this article, Adrian Poole, Director Digital Natives UKI at Google Cloud, provides insight into how SMBs can strategically use gen AI to automate tasks and improve efficiency, enabling their workforce to work smarter, not harder.
The dramatic growth of gen AI presents SMBs with unprecedented opportunities to augment their workforce. As gen AI tools become increasingly popular, SMBs can not only achieve immediate operational improvements but also a transformative shift in their business models by integrating AI tools. For SMBs looking to embrace the gen AI revolution, selecting the right tools becomes a critical decision—one that can dramatically impact their growth trajectory and operational efficiency.
Director of Digital Natives UKI at Google Cloud.
Start with the right use cases
The process of implementing gen AI begins with a thorough assessment of the company’s current needs, pain points, and long-term goals. This could range from automating administrative tasks, improving customer service, generating content, or gaining actionable insights from data.
By understanding these requirements, SMEs can narrow down the gen AI solutions that offer the most relevant features and benefits. However, currently only 7% of UK SMEs consider their level of AI knowledge to be very good. To make positive progress, SMEs must focus on identifying the areas where AI can have the greatest impact.
Ultimately, AI is designed to support human activity, including decision-making. Using it to improve productivity means looking at tasks that can be easily automated, requiring less effort to produce the same great results. One such tool that SMBs should consider implementing is multimodal AI models. These models understand and generate information in different formats such as text, images, and video, offering a level of versatility and efficiency that can transform business operations – the ultimate multitasker.
This makes them particularly suitable for SMBs that are already used to employees juggling multiple roles and responsibilities. For example, a gen AI application that analyses customer feedback from social media, emails and online reviews can provide deep insights into customer sentiment, allowing SMBs to tailor their offering and improve the customer experience. This is something that has already led to 75% of UK SMBs attributing new customer wins to gen AI.
Similarly, a tool that can process and generate content in different formats can help with marketing, sales and customer service, saving SMB teams valuable time.
Improving communication and collaboration with AI
In the modern workplace, communication and collaboration are critical to the success of SMBs. As these companies strive to remain agile and innovative, SMBs are looking to AI to help transform how teams interact, share knowledge, and collaborate.
One of the most immediate benefits of integrating gen AI into business operations is improving internal communications. Gen AI can automate meeting summaries so that key points and decisions are accurately captured and shared with team members, including those who can’t attend. This capability not only saves time, but also ensures that everyone is aligned on goals and outcomes.
Because Gen AI can be trained to understand and address situational needs, it can solve specific challenges. For SMBs, this could mean less time or resources needed to complete tasks, allowing employees to be in “multiple places at once” and compete at scale. We’re already seeing this in the U.S., with a recent survey finding that 63% of SMB leaders said AI is helping to level the playing field for small businesses competing with larger corporations.
Educating staff about the potential of AI
Despite this potential, research from IONOS in partnership with YouGov reveals that almost half (48%) of UK SMEs say their knowledge of the technology is fairly poor or very poor, and over half (56%) have never used AI tools at work before. To take advantage of gen AI opportunities, staff training is a fundamental step. This goes beyond just technical training; it includes gaining a deep understanding of the capabilities, limitations and ethical considerations of gen AI.
The first step in educating employees is to build broad AI literacy across the organization. This doesn’t mean that every employee needs to become a tech expert, but that everyone needs to understand the basics of AI, how it can be applied to their work, and the value it brings. By doing this, companies create a culture of AI fluency, where employees feel comfortable using AI tools and can contribute ideas on how to best leverage them.
Equally important is the need to effectively illustrate the potential benefits for staff at every level. To move discussions about gen AI from theoretical to concrete, demonstrable examples relevant to SMB staff are needed to drive adoption. Furthermore, the more staff can see gen AI tools in action, the better they will understand how to use them effectively to save time and improve productivity.
Doing more with less
The future of business is inextricably linked to the evolution of AI technologies. For SMBs, this presents an unprecedented opportunity to improve efficiency, drive innovation, and deepen customer engagement. By training staff, selecting the right tools, and fostering a culture of ethical AI use, businesses can use gen AI to not only optimize their operations, but also achieve sustainable growth and gain a competitive advantage. With this foundation, gen AI can play a critical role in augmenting human capabilities with the computing power of AI to solve challenges, unlock new opportunities, and achieve goals once thought beyond the reach of SMBs.
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