AI confusion? 10 simple AI tool tips for small and medium-sized businesses
If you own or run a small or medium-sized business in the UK, you may feel pressure to adopt AI . Perhaps you don’t know where to start. The good news? You don’t need a big budget, a dedicated AI team or a complicated transformation project. There are plenty of practical problems you can start solving with AI right now.
Here are 10 examples:
1. Back-to-back meetings and no time for notes
Problem: You’re in meetings all day, then have to spend more time writing up notes, minutes and actions.
Try an AI meeting note-taker.
AI can transcribe meetings, summarise the key points, identify actions and, in some cases, help update your CRM afterwards.
There are now lots of AI-powered meeting tools and your existing meeting tool may already have this functionality.
Small caveat:
Please check the small print on the user terms and agreement, as you don’t want your meeting information to train models or end up in unexpected places.
2. Spending hours working with spreadsheets
Problem: You have spreadsheets full of data, but analysing, cleaning or manipulating them takes ages.
Use AI inside your spreadsheet.
For example, if you’re a Microsoft 365 user, look at Copilot in Excel. If you use Google Workspace, Gemini can work with Google Sheets.
If you prefer something else, there are ways to connect other AI tools to your spreadsheets.
The important distinction is that this isn’t simply uploading a workbook to a chatbot.
AI can be inside the spreadsheet while you’re working, helping you analyse data, identify patterns, create formulas and more.
Small caveat: When you connect an external AI tool to your spreadsheet you also agree to terms and conditions.
3. You’re spending time on social media but don’t know what’s working
Problem: You’re posting regularly, but you’re not sure what’s actually helping you achieve your business goals.
Use your social media data to inform your strategy.
AI can help analyse your performance data, identify patterns and highlight what appears to be working and what isn’t.
You can then use those insights to develop a more focused marketing strategy.
You can also use GenAI tools to help create or edit marketing materials.
The key is to start asking:
What does my data tell me about what I should do next?
4. Your customer data is a mess
Problem: Missing fields. Different ways of entering the same information. Duplicates. Triplicates. Inconsistent labels.
Use AI to help clean and structure your data.
AI can help identify inconsistencies, suggest standardised labels, spot potential duplicates and help you design a more consistent way of entering information.
Small caveat:
Cleaning data with AI is the quick win.
Keeping it clean is another thing.
You need a simple system for how information should be entered in future.
5. A government report has just been published and you don’t have time to read it
Problem: A new report could affect your business, but it’s very long. And there’s an accompanying dataset that could contain even more useful information.
Use AI to help you research it.
You can use AI tools to summarise documents, identify key findings, compare sections and ask questions about the content.
You can also analyse relevant datasets with AI and ask it to identify trends or patterns.
With a well-designed prompt, you could start with an executive summary, then drill down into the areas that matter to your business.
Obviously, don’t blindly trust the output. Check important facts and sources, especially when you’re making business decisions.
6. You/Your team spends days creating PowerPoint presentations
Problem: You need a polished presentation for a meeting, pitch or event and someone spends days creating the slides.
Try AI presentation tools.
Tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and other dedicated AI presentation platforms can help turn an outline or written content into a structured presentation much faster.
You still need to review, edit and add your expertise.
But you don’t necessarily need to start with a blank slide.
7. You’re meeting a potential customer but don’t have time to research them
Problem: You have a meeting today and want to understand the organisation, its challenges and the person you’re speaking to — but you don’t have hours to prepare.
Use AI to speed up your research.
AI can help you organise publicly available information, identify useful areas to explore and generate questions you could ask.
Instead of walking into the meeting knowing nothing, you can walk in with a much more useful starting point.
8. You want to understand how your business performed but you don’t have an analyst
Problem: Your business generates plenty of data, but nobody has the time or expertise to analyse it.
Start using AI as a data analysis assistant.
You could ask questions such as:
- What changed this quarter?
- Compare it to the previous FY.
- Which products or services performed best?
- Where are we seeing unusual patterns?
- What should I investigate further?
- What questions should I be asking about this data?
You don’t need to become a data analyst overnight.
Start by using AI to help you ask better questions of the data you already have
9. You want to adopt AI, but your staff are reluctant
Problem: This isn’t really a technology problem.
It’s a people problem.
And there isn’t a magic AI tool that will fix it.
Start small and involve your staff.
Give people opportunities to explore how AI could make their work easier.
Ask:
What part of your job do you spend far too much time doing?
Then explore whether AI could help.
Create safe spaces for people to ask questions, experiment and talk honestly about their concerns.
You may find that enthusiasm spreads from the people who discover a genuinely useful application.
10. You have lots of ideas, but struggle to turn them into action
Problem: You have a notebook full of ideas about how to improve the business, but they stay as ideas.
Use AI to turn ideas into an action plan.
Give AI your ideas, goals, constraints and timescales.
Ask it to help you organise them into priorities, break them into manageable actions, identify dependencies and suggest what needs to happen first.
You remain the decision-maker.
AI simply helps you get from we should do that to here’s what we’re going to do next.
These are deliberately generic examples.
I don’t know your business, your processes, your data or the tools you use yet.
That is an important starting point.
Look at the tools you already have.
Your existing software may already have AI functionality, sometimes included, sometimes requiring a different licence.
There are also opportunities to use AI for automation, which can be different from traditional automation.
Instead of only automating a fixed, predictable process, AI can help with tasks involving things like text, documents, classification, summarisation and unstructured information.
The best place to start with AI is:
What problem in my business is costing me time, money or opportunities?
Then ask whether AI can help solve it.
If you’re an SME owner or decision-maker and you’re wondering what could AI do for MY business?, that’s where I come in.
My consultancy, My Eureka Moment, works with SMEs to identify practical opportunities for AI and data. The consultancy is independent from SaaS provers or AI companies.
My AI & Data Quick Wins service for SME owners starts with where you are now, your business, your processes, your data and the tools you’re already using.
I’ll work with you to identify practical opportunities and create a tailored plan of what you can do with AI right now.
Practical, achievable next steps.
What business problem would you most like AI to help you solve?