Introduction
We see a lot of dramatic stories and unrealistic hype around AI. Clickbaity headlines about businesses who’ve replaced their entire workforce with AI and CEOs who have increased productivity by 3000%. Whilst there’s lots of talk of huge business transformations and a brand new way of working, there is far less clarity about where any of this actually shows up inside a typical business, especially an SME. Anyone who has spent any time inside an SME will know that putting everything on hold to execute a huge AI transformation just isn’t realistic.
We think that one of the best and most valuable places for SMEs to start is simple AI Automation. Instead of overhauling every aspect of your business, automation quietly slips in around the edges. It takes away repetitive tasks, reduces drains on time, and ensures that employees put their energy into more valuable and fulfilling work. So, in contrast to the flashy headlines, the most effective AI use for SMEs is very effective, achievable in fast paced business environments, and practical to the point of being a bit boring.
In this article, we’ll look at three situations where AI automations can make a big difference to SME environments.
Situation 1: When reporting on the work becomes the work
Tasks get done, conversations take place, decisions get made. Then, alongside that, there’s the ongoing expectation to explain what’s happening and ‘keep people in the loop’. Status updates, progress summaries, reports for leadership, and quick overviews for other teams. Reporting on your work, whilst essential, can quickly feel as big a task as the work itself.
All that information exists but it lives across messages, documents, systems that don’t work together, and often in our heads because we just ‘know’. Pulling that together, checking it’s current, and is presented in the correct way for your audience can be frustrating and time consuming.
This is where automation can start to reduce friction. Collecting information from agreed places, keeping it up to date, and assembling it into a consistent view that can be shared when it’s needed.
When that reporting effort stops sitting with individuals, updates become easier to produce and easier to trust. People spend less time recreating the story of what’s already happened, and more time actually getting the job done.
Situation 2: The admin that blends into everyday work
A lot of admin in SMEs doesn’t feel like admin because it isn’t a standalone task. It’s small bits of updating multiple systems, copying information from a message or email across to documents and software to keep things aligned, and writing up notes and summaries from staff and client meetings. Each step feels sensible and familiar, but as more tools get added and the business and its grow, the scale of these tasks multiplies, and becomes a time drain.
Automation helps because it can sit between systems and handle those obvious exchanges. Information arrives, the relevant details are picked out, and the right place gets updated without anyone having to step in.
From the outside, nothing much changes. It just takes less effort to keep everything aligned, updated and moving forwards. It also means progress is less reliant on a specific individual to remember and complete a series of tasks before things can move forward.
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Situation 3: When work hasn’t quite started yet
This might feel familiar: a meeting finishes, a piece of work gets agreed, leadership hands over a project that makes sense to everyone in the room. Then people go back to their desks and continue with whatever they were doing beforehand. At this point, the work hasn’t really begun; it hasn’t been turned into a clear set of steps with explicit ownership and order. In situations like this, progress is often reliant on somebody deciding what happens first, assigning tasks, deadlines and ownership, and if everyone is waiting for somebody else to do it, progress can be slow and unclear.
This is an area AI automation really excels at; it gives projects and work enough shape and momentum to get going and move forward. It can turn discussions into assigned tasks with deadlines, it can summarise your meetings and ensure everyone is on the same page with the same understanding of the goal, as well as order tasks and notify people so progress doesn’t stall later down the line. With that structure in place, work starts more smoothly, keeps momentum without constant checking in, and allows people to actually make progress instead of waiting for each other.
A sensible start
When you step back from the headlines and think practically about how AI can make a difference to specific pain points, it’s clear that implementing AI is doable. None of the above is futuristic or out of reach for a busy SME; they’re achievable automations based off repeatable tasks. Instead of overhauling you’re entire business, AI automations smooth over areas that require more effort than reward and have quietly become part of the work for a growing business.
When you’re thinking about how these situations and AI Automations might fit into your business, a good starting place is to ask yourself these questions:
- Where does reporting on the work start to compete with actually doing it?
- Where are people re-entering details to keep systems and documents aligned?
- Where does work slow because it hasn’t been turned into something concrete and actionable?
By focussing on situations like the above, AI stops feeling like a separate initiative that requires stopping and reworking your entire business, and starts behaving like a background support system that simply makes everything feel easier.
If you’d like to get a clearer sense of where AI could fit into your business, our AI readiness assessment is a useful place to start.
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