Artificial Intelligence for SMBs: What It Is & How You Can Use It

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AI has been at the forefront of business discussions (for good or bad) these last couple of years. But that doesn’t mean that every business owner is acting on it.

According to a 2025 Chamber of Commerce survey, only 36% of small businesses are focused enough on artificial intelligence to invest in it.

There are valid reasons why AI isn’t a top priority for small business owners. Some have bigger concerns, like finding business software to help them streamline and optimize their businesses. 60% of those surveyed said that was their top investment area. Security is also a concern when it comes to using AI in business.

But let’s say you’re curious about AI. Everyone is talking about it for a reason. Is this something that could be beneficial to your particular business? Let’s take a look.

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a technology that does complex functions. For example, AI can:

Edit code for websites or apps.
Chat with customers using natural language processing and rules-based responses.
Summarize lengthy texts.
Perform complex calculations and analyze data.
Read through extensive documentation and provide recommendations or decisions.
Write captions for social media.
Automate repetitive processes, like sending emails based on certain triggers.
Set reminders for things like following up with leads.

Essentially, AI uses its advanced processing capabilities to quickly execute a lot of the mundane or repetitive tasks that we humans do.

That said, AI does have its limitations. While it can use logic and rules to determine next steps, and it can make improvements to its output over time, it doesn’t always have the intelligence or context to complete tasks correctly or accurately. So, the human touch will always be needed, no matter how much your organization invests in AI.

How to Use AI for Your Business's Benefit

AI can be a useful business asset if you’re looking to outsource some of the more repetitive and non-revenue-generating activities of your business to a machine. This will free up you and your team to focus on more pertinent matters.

For SMBs, what exactly does this look like?

Instead of trying to automate everything with AI, find the areas of your workflows that can safely be handed over to AI. Here are some common uses cases for SMBs:

Accounting

As money moves in and out of your business, it’s important to keep track of how much and where it’s going. While you’ll always need an accountant to make sure everything is in order, you can use AI tools to do things like track profits and expenses, categorize expenses, send invoices and reminders, extract data from invoices, and even detect anomalies in spending.

Data Entry

Administrative and executive assistants often have a ton of responsibilities on their plates. If you’ve ever wished your assistant had more time for activities that help move the needle forward in your business, use AI to take some of the data entry off of their plate. For example, AI can transcribe your meetings and also enter lead and customer contact details into your CRM.

Report Generation

From revenue generation to marketing campaigns, there’s a lot of data to review and only so many hours in the day to do it. AI can generate reports from all your software systems and provide you with a list of key points to focus on. What’s more, it can aggregate the data from all your systems and show you how everything is connected. Instead of seeing things in silos, you’ll have a bird’s-eye view of your business from month to month.

Customer Relationship Management

One of the great things about building a cloud-enabled business is how easy it is to scale your operation from that point forward. At the same time, all that growth can make it more difficult to stay on top of your leads and customers. With an AI-enabled CRM platform, it can do things like follow up with leads, remind customers that a renewal or service is coming up, and even re-engage with older customers.

Online Support

Not everyone is a fan of picking up the phone these days. For those that prefer to fill out contact forms, send emails, or text, you can have an AI chatbot ready to respond to them. Even if it’s only to say “Thank you for reaching out”, your chatbot will ensure that every contact is met with a speedy response. Depending on the complexity of your business, you can even program it to route certain messages to different team members or to set priorities for them.

Product/Project Management

For product-based businesses, AI can come in handy with inventory management. Your AI will always know how much inventory you have on hand and alert you when it needs to be replenished. On the other hand, for service-based businesses, AI can handle things like opening service tickets, assigning them to team members, and tracking task completion.

Marketing Optimization

While there are various marketing tasks that AI can do, it shines in two areas in particular: research and optimization. For example, if you’re about to start a business in middle Tennessee and want to know what you’re up against in the local market, AI can quickly pull that info for you. It can also help you get better results. For instance, write clickable email subject lines, schedule social media posts for higher engagement, and personalize website content.

Set Your Business Up for Success with AI

AI isn’t a magical cure for all your business’s problems nor is it an instant solution to overnight success. But it can certainly help your operation run more smoothly and also free your employees to work on more profit-making tasks.

That said, if you don’t have the right technological foundation for your business, artificial intelligence isn’t going to be of much help.

To start, ensure you have the right hardware and cloud solutions to streamline and scale your business. Then make sure these assets are fully secured, from your home office to the field. When you’ve got all that squared away, you can work on integrating AI into your tech stack.

Need help deciding what to use in terms of AI and how to introduce it into your existing infrastructure and workflows without causing major problems? Schedule a consultation with us now.

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