Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly turning to innovative and productivity-enhancing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to improve their businesses. With the Autumn Budget looming, many are calling for the UK government to dedicate incentives to empower growth, and now may be a perfect time to consider AI as part of those plans.

As October marks Cyber Security Awareness Month, it’s only prudent to shed light on some of the most cutting-edge and empowering AI tools that can help SME business owners stay competitive, improve efficiency and drive growth, especially those that do not compromise business security.

This article explores how SMEs can mindfully and methodically engage AI to streamline operations and catapult them towards growth. 

The influence of AI in SME businesses

AI has evolved exponentially over the last several years, to the point where it has become an indispensable and augmenting asset for businesses of varying sizes. SMEs, in particular, can take advantage of AI across several functions to outwardly ‘level the playing field’, allowing them to compete with other companies in their sector. 

Over half (57%) of the UK’s SMEs are exploring AI to automate various parts of their businesses, according to a recent report. However, there are emerging skills gaps which are proving to be obstacles for business owners to harness the power of this innovative technology. What’s more, AI is expected to have a transformative impact on skills, wages, jobs and operations in the coming years, according to experts. 

Disinformation, misinformation, biases and far-reaching security concerns have become synonymous with unsupervised generative AI use, despite it being one of the most accessible tools. However, this is not to suggest that AI cannot be used as a force for good in business. Focusing on key functions, gradual integration, and enforcing strict human supervision over its usage, SMEs can ensure a seamless transition to automated and streamlined processes, unlocking more growth potential.

Key uses for AI in SMEs

AI tools can be used in several functions, including (but not limited to):

• Customer service and engagement
• Marketing campaigns
• Project and task management
• Inventory management
• Financial forecasting and projections
• Supply chain management
• Human resources
• Recruitment
• Business intelligence
• Data analysis

Top 5 AI tools for SME efficiency

Below are some of the most effective and user-friendly AI tools (or solutions which have AI capabilities included) which can help SMEs improve their efficiency while driving growth across their organisation.

1. HubSpot – Marketing automation

Of all the full-service marketing solutions available today, arguably one of the most well-known is HubSpot. It offers a diverse range of AI-driven marketing tools that can elevate an SME’s marketing campaigns, saving them vital hours of manual campaign creation while giving them ample oversight.

Its functions include:

• An AI virtual assistant – Breeze Copilot
• AI-powered outreach tools to enhance sales pipelines
• Content creation and optimisation tools
• Social media analytics tools
• AI email, report and text message writers
• Intelligent insight-gathering tools
• Predictive sales forecasts and reporting tools

With this tool, SMEs can automate many of their repetitive, manual and time-consuming marketing tasks, while improving their lead generation and creating more personalised campaigns. For businesses trying to scale via numerous marketing channels, it’s important to recognise the influence that AI currently has and will continue to have, certainly when it comes to search engine innovations and ad creation. With the right approach, however, automation can help unlock new time- and resource-saving opportunities while business leaders dedicate more time to strategic tasks.

2. Asana – Project management

Asana – a widely-used project and task management tool – has incorporated lots of AI features to help teams work more efficiently. 

Asana AI teammates allow businesses to gain intelligent insights across teams and tools, automate multiple workflows, prioritise tasks based on importance, and make accurate project timeline predictions. This allows SMEs to speed up their planning cycles, optimise their resources, align workloads and goals, and streamline many time-consuming processes simultaneously, collectively improving team productivity.

3. Zendesk – Customer service

Zendesk AI brings together key customer experience and service processes with intelligent data to help SMEs deliver higher-quality, tailored services to their customers with fewer resources.

Key features include:

• AI-powered chatbots for round-the-clock assistance
• Automated ticket and query routing
• Generative AI-powered answers for faster interactions
• Detailed analysis of tickets and tailored suggestions for responses

Implementing Zendesk allows SMEs to elevate their customer service function while minimising the amount of time team members spend on crafting responses and empowering them to dedicate more time to crucial business areas.

4. Xero – Financial management

Xero is a trusted accounting software solution for businesses of all sizes, but no group (arguably) benefits more from this than SMEs. It has begun integrating AI into its cloud-based model to help its users manage their finances more effectively and with more confidence.

With automated bank reconciliation, data capture, cash flow forecasting and balancing, anomaly detection features, and a conversational AI-powered interface, business owners can unlock numerous opportunities for growth while remaining highly efficient. SMEs can make more informed business decisions based on fast, personalised insights aggregated from Xero’s new AI capabilities.

5. Skillate AI – Talent acquisition

Recruitment just became infinitely easier with the help of advanced, AI-powered decision-making engines. SMEs can leverage Skillate AI to make smarter hiring decisions involving intuitive candidate databases, interview scheduling bots, pre-screening AI chatbots and post-offer engagement campaigns, among others.

Skillate also offers SMEs the chance to deliver improved candidate experiences with real-time updates, detailed job descriptions, predictive patterns and real-time DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) tools which can reduce the ‘barriers’ to success in the workplace, save time on valuations, and improve the quality of their hires. Ultimately, this contributes to a more growth-focused and efficient company.

Next steps for AI adoption in SMEs

The list above only scratches the surface of what AI can offer small and medium businesses. A key takeaway from this is that AI is here to stay, despite our differing opinions of what it is and could be in today’s business environments. The AI market in the UK is expected to grow annually at 28.30% (CAGR), resulting in a market volume of $26.89 billion by 2030 (roughly £20.21 billion based on exchange rates at the time of writing). 

Before integrating AI across your organisation, it’s essential to identify one or two key areas where AI can make a pivotal difference to company efficiency. Select AI solutions that integrate well with your existing infrastructure and are scalable as your business grows, while upskilling your team with awareness, education and training to help them discover the full power of this technology. 

Ensure you maintain human judgement and oversight over AI’s continued usage across different business functions. Remember it’s an asset to support your team, not replace them. Start small, monitor and assess the effectiveness of your implementations, then gradually expand your use of AI as you become more comfortable with the technology.