AI Revolution: Empowering Small Businesses with Cutting-Edge Tools

Accelerate your small business with this AI toolkit

A new generation of smart, affordable AI is giving flexible enterprises a powerful competitive edge AI is the small business solution Rob Low can't live without. As someone who suffers from dyslexia, he found social media posting exhausting. Getting a "quick" post online used to take him half an hour. "I just stopped bothering," he says. Now, thanks to ChatGPT, things are different. "I can type absolute gobbledygook into the engine and it understands exactly what I'm saying," he says. Social media postings are just one of the many applications of AI that has enabled Low's small business Zeepy to hit dizzying heights. Zeepy produces sleep-training products and podcasts that are in the top 5 per cent of podcasts downloads globally. None of it would be there without AI - unless Zeepy hired a team of expensive freelancers. "It's empowered us to do a lot more stuff than we knew we were capable of," Low says. Zeepy is just one example of how a newly available range of AI apps are changing the way firms can do business. For many, AI is providing a competitive edge. For some, it is fundamental to the way the business operates - an opportunity to do something previously impossible. "Used well, AI has the power to transform how small businesses operate," says Tina McKenzie, Policy Chair at the UK's Federation of Small Businesses. Competitive threat There is a flip side, of course: the mere existence of these apps represents a threat to companies unwilling or unable to adapt. According to a 2024 YouGov survey, only one-third of small business leaders have even a basic understanding of AI tools. "Right now, many aren't able to maximise AI's potential," McKenzie warns. The AI-for-everyone revolution began in earnest in November 2022, when tech firm OpenAI launched ChatGPT. After multiple iterations, ChatGPT is now a hugely powerful "generative AI", which means it can produce content - text, images, video and so on - in response to a prompt as simple as "design a flyer to promote my business". There is a huge range of powerful AI apps on offer now, performing tasks from developing company strategy to engaging with customers at any time of the day or night (see Box). Law firms, breweries, manufacturing businesses and skincare companies have all jumped on board. One such app is Tidio, which offers AI-powered customer service via a chatbot. Zeepy has been using it for a while now to deal with enquiries. Law gave it access to Zeepy's website so that it could scrape all the support articles, then trained it with the instruction manual for their products and a lot of the frequently asked questions that come in from customers. "It was about half a day's work," he says. Once trained up, it took over the interactions with customers on the website. "It has reduced the number of emails we have to deal with by about 90 per cent," Law says. BlackShuck Distillery in Norfolk, UK, has enjoyed a similar experience. Owned and run by a husband and wife team, BlackShuck is a shop, distillery, event space and tourist destination. There's a lot to do, and Microsoft's Copilot AI engine is now part of the BlackShuck operation. "We have a virtual bartender on our website that can answer customer questions 24/7," says co-founder Sarah Saunders. Those questions might be about opening times, or the best way to drink BlackShuck's new cherry brandy liqueur. It has a marketing role too. "I use it to create social media posts," Saunders says. "That's helpful because we're a small business and we are reliant on marketing our products through social media." If you're switched on to AI, you can employ a range of apps as if you had a team of employees. Louis Watkins, the founder of Clear for Men, built his skincare business using a diverse set of AI apps such as Shopify (for processing payments), ChatGPT (for content creation) and Boardy (for network building). Boardy is an example of AI's future: it is "agentic", meaning that it operates as a standalone entity that can set its own agenda. Its creators market Boardy as a "superconnector" that operates with a vast network of founders, creators, investors and customers: always-on and always creating opportunities. "With agentic AI, you start to remove restrictions and allow for AI that can make decisions," says Aaron Harris, chief technology officer of accounting software firm Sage, which is starting to move into agentic AI with its accountancy and auditing software. "Now the human can move onto doing other work, knowing that the agentic AI will pull them in if needed." AI agents As more agentic AIs are deployed online, they are likely to connect and collaborate with each other, creating a whole new dynamic in business practice. Last year, OpenAI chairman Sam Altmann suggested that, because of AI apps, the era of a single person running a billion-dollar company was not far off. Nothing that's happened in the last year has dimmed that vision. A "small business" has always been defined by the number of employees. But, with AI in the mix, there doesn't need to be anything small about the turnover.

Two-Thirds of Small Businesses Are Already Using AI -- Here's How to Get Even More Out of It

Every day, business owners encounter large and small decisions that could significantly influence their company's health and growth. Having the right tools and technology can be just as crucial as building a strong team, particularly as more resources become accessible to businesses of all sizes. That's one reason AI adoption is climbing fast. According to new research from Intuit QuickBooks, 68% of small businesses now use AI regularly, and most (74%) say it's helping them accomplish more with less. Unpacking how AI can help your business in meaningful ways starts with understanding what it can do for you efficiently. GenAI has become one of the most familiar and accessible technologies in recent years, built into everything from search engines to accounting platforms. Today, 56% of small businesses using AI rely on these generative tools. GenAI excels at automating content creation: summarizing, translating and drafting responses, which helps business owners stay responsive, make faster decisions and reduce manual work. However, even greater value can be achieved by layering in agentic AI, although only 9% of businesses currently utilize it. Unlike GenAI, agentic AI takes action on your behalf. These AI agents are context-aware, meaning they can handle multi-step processes and explain their reasoning behind decisions, drawing on past data to provide business owners with clarity and control. In short, while GenAI helps you create, agentic AI helps you execute. Used together, they empower small businesses to achieve more with less. Among businesses using AI, 41% say their revenue has increased, and 86% consider their business in good health. So, how can businesses best leverage AI tools? Here are five areas where businesses can infuse AI into their workflows. Related: How AI Is Leveling the Playing Field For Small Businesses to Compete With Industry Giants In the next three months, 47% of small businesses say nothing would help them more than a successful marketing campaign. It's no wonder 43% are already using AI to sharpen their marketing efforts. GenAI can create copy and images for social posts, email campaigns and digital ads. Let agentic AI manage audience delivery based on customer behavior, run A/B testing and track results. How to get started: Start small by leveraging GenAI features in the tools you already use, such as social media scheduling. For your next marketing campaign, consider using agentic AI to experiment with email subject lines, optimize send times or segment audiences based on purchase behavior or engagement history. The key is to test and learn what resonates most with your audience. To go a step further, use a marketing platform that can analyze your customer communications and create unique campaigns based on their interaction with your product or service. Thirty-six percent of small businesses already use AI for customer service. Among them, 74% report higher productivity, and 24% have actually shortened their workdays. That's time you can put back into your business. GenAI uses natural language capabilities to generate replies and power chatbots based on user prompts. While agentic tools can respond to customers as well, they go further with their ability to autonomously plan, reason, and take actions to resolve customer issues, such as routing requests, flagging urgent communications, tracking follow-ups and even making changes to customer records without human intervention. How to get started: Try creating a library of automated templates for your most common questions first. Once you're comfortable, test agentic features that can prioritize or escalate requests for you. Related: AI Is an Incredible Customer Service Asset -- But It's Not Flawless. Here's How to Avoid 4 Common Mistakes. GenAI can quickly summarize meeting notes, write reminders and create checklists, reducing everyday friction. Meanwhile, agentic AI can multiply administrative efficiency through automated actions. After a client call, for instance, it can create follow-up actions, schedule meetings, log notes into your CRM or assign tasks after a call -- no manual effort required. Roughly a third (33%) of small businesses are using AI to handle administrative tasks, often through tools they already rely on. How to get started: Simply turn on AI features in your calendar, email or project management apps. Then, explore ways to connect these tools for even smoother workflows. AI is changing the way small businesses understand their numbers. GenAI is well-suited for summarizing reports, spotting trends and quickly answering "what happened?" within a business. Agentic AI drives tasks like forecasting future trends, alerting you to anomalies and connecting real-time data to your planning tools. Today, 32% of small businesses use AI to help make sense of their data. How to get started: Ditch the spreadsheets and input your business performance data into an AI-powered software to get a clear baseline of your business health. Try AI-powered dashboards that notify you when key metrics shift, so you can stay ahead of the curve. This can help you with automating business reports, but can go as far as even helping you predict changes in cash flow. Related: AI Can Turn Your Raw Data into Actionable Insights and Visual Stories The survey also found that 29% of small businesses use AI for bookkeeping, and 15% adopted it based on a recommendation from an accountant or consultant. With GenAI, business owners can automatically categorize transactions and track cash flow, so nothing slips through the cracks. To streamline workflows even further, agentic AI capabilities can automate account reconciliations, flag irregular transactions and send personalized invoices tailored to clients, helping businesses get paid faster. How to get started: Look for a connected AI-powered platform that unifies your business data, automates accounting tasks and proactively delivers insights and recommendations, so you can spend less time on manual work and focus on growing your business with confidence. And, if you are using an accountant, pairing the power of AI with human expertise will lead to a clearer view into your finances. AI is already helping small businesses work smarter, but business growth comes from using it with purpose. Generative and agentic tools each play a role, and when combined with your expertise, they can support better decisions, faster follow-through and stronger operations. If you're one of the 1 in 4 small businesses not yet utilizing AI, here's my advice: start in one area, build from there and keep moving forward.