By Vanessa O’Mahony, below, Head of Slack for Small and Growth Businesses, EMEA
Everyone is watching as the world’s biggest technology businesses build the future of AI. But while these organisations have the computing power and resources behind them to invest in AI innovation, it’s smaller companies that might see some of the biggest benefits.
This is good news – particularly as the UK is built on small enterprises. They account for over 99% of all companies and almost two-thirds of employment. In the past 24 months they’ve been hit hard, though, by the one-two punch of inflation and supply chain issues – all while still recovering from the impact of the pandemic.
AI offers a chance to even the odds. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution – and small businesses will also be looking forward to falling inflation and cuts in interest rates for help – but with the right approach, it will make a significant difference, bolstering productivity while enabling businesses to scale rapidly.
At the same time, small businesses thrive by offering a personal touch and creating trust. That’s why it’s crucial that, even as AI helps them bolster productivity, humans remain at the helm.
Tackling the trust challenge
New research shows there’s growing enthusiasm for AI across the UK. Usage is up 66% in under a year, while 85% of those using AI say they are seeing productivity gains. However, at the same time, there are still hurdles to unlocking AI’s potential. Chief among them is the fact a full 94% of workers don’t think AI outputs are completely trustworthy for work-related tasks.
There’s a lot to unpick here. On the one hand, AI’s productivity-boosting credentials are established. A further study even found small businesses could bolster efficiency by 40% through the technology. Yet despite this potential, small business leaders who have reservations around AI aren’t wrong: AI is an emerging technology and work needs to be done to ensure it can be trusted before it is deployed. Its challenges, from transparency to ‘hallucinations’ which provide inaccurate information are well-documented.
Then again, no technology is infallible. From scanning computers in the 1990s for viruses, to deploying two-factor authentication today, unlocking the benefits of technology has always come with a parallel management and mitigation of risk.
On balance though, few would argue these risks mean we should pack up our current tech and start reinstalling fax machines. Instead, we identify the best tools as well as plan for them and protect against risk, while untapping the benefits they bring.
The same goes for AI. Its benefits are clear, but it has to be deployed in a way that prioritises accuracy, trust and transparency.
Moving from in the loop, to at the helm
For some time, a ‘human in the loop’ approach has been the preferred way of engaging with AI, and it broadly means ensuring a human is aware of every activity an AI undertakes. However, as AI advances and scales, this isn’t always going to be realistic.
For small businesses in particular, one of the key benefits of AI is the ability for it to take on repetitive and time-consuming tasks so that people can get stuck into more valuable, complex or creative work. That’s why we need to move to a ‘human at the helm’ approach.
With the human at the helm, AI is left to do the heavy lifting. For example, it might be analysing thousands of sales and providing a forecast for the year ahead. Rather than working on each of these themselves, the finance team steps into review, judge and decide on next steps – for example, whether further investigation is needed or if the figures are good to go in the yearly report they’re working on.
The moving services platform, Homemove, is one growing business that’s taken this approach. The team uses Slack as its core AI-powered productivity app, and its OpenAI and CRM integration helps them to track and manage sales.
Whenever a new sale or update comes through at Homemove, AI automatically provides an update with all the relevant context. It means everyone is updated on the fast-paced team without having to lose time digging for information, or manually reviewing different systems. For example, the AI update might say “I’m changing John’s price to £255 because he’s now going for a level two survey.” The team sees the update, knows it’s accurate and can carry on with what they were doing with confidence. Or, if John needs extra help, they can jump in knowing exactly what’s come before.
For Homemove, using AI has had a direct impact – helping them bolster sales from £62,000 in August last year, to over £100,000 just a few months later in October.
Untapping big AI benefits for small businesses
Small businesses everywhere deserve some good news. Not only do they keep our economy and communities thriving, but they’ve weathered some serious storms in recent times. With the right strategy, AI can empower them to reach new heights, bolstering productivity and helping teams to focus on the work that matters to them.
Getting it right will take more than flicking a switch marked ‘AI’, though. It calls for using platforms that bring AI to where the work is already happening in a business. And which do so while keeping humans at the helm.
That’s because steering the small business ship will still call for the grit, innovation and creativity that only people can offer – but with AI, an unprecedented upgrade to the engine room is ready and waiting.
