Whether you like it or not, AI is going to change how your business runs.
You might not be a fan. You might already be using Claude or ChatGPT to get through the week. Either way, the processes that have underpinned UK businesses for decades will look different in the years ahead.
What's interesting is that most businesses have already started experimenting. More than half of UK SMEs now use AI in some form. And yet, for many businesses, AI is still being used to improve individual tasks rather than fundamentally rethink how work gets done.
That gap is what I'm here to talk about.
There's a number in the British Chambers of Commerce research this year that should make every business owner stop and think.
AI adoption among UK SMEs has risen from 25% in 2024 to 35% in 2025, and then to 54% in 2026. In two years, it's more than doubled. By any measure, that's a rapid rate of adoption.
Here's the number that sits alongside it. Only about 11% of businesses surveyed use technology to a significant extent to automate or streamline their operations.
So, while more than half are using AI, only around one in ten report using technology extensively to change how their operations work.
The opportunity isn't simply to get more businesses using AI. It's to help them put it to work in ways that make a meaningful difference.
The same challenge shows up when we look at business outcomes. DSIT research found that 75% of UK businesses using AI reported improved workforce productivity. Only 12% reported an increase in revenue.
That gap is worth sitting with. Three-quarters of businesses feel more productive. Around one in eight has reported a revenue increase.
It doesn't mean the productivity gains aren't real. People are genuinely drafting emails faster, summarising documents in seconds and producing a first version of a proposal in a fraction of the time. That's real, and it's useful.
But individual productivity doesn't automatically translate into business-wide gains. If everyone on your team saves 20 minutes a day, and that time goes back into the same processes running in the same way, your business might become a little more efficient without unlocking much additional capacity.
The real opportunity is to take those gains further.
Businesses looking to turn AI into meaningful commercial value need to look beyond simply speeding up individual tasks. They need to ask whether some of those tasks can be removed altogether.
Think about the work that happens between your systems rather than inside them. Someone takes an order from one application and keys it into another. Someone pulls the same report every Monday morning. Someone chases an approval, then chases it again.
We call it swivel-chair work because that's literally what it looks like. Turn to one screen, read. Turn to the other, type. None of it appears in a job description. All of it eats away at several minutes at a time, adding up to hours of lost productivity every week.
This is the kind of work AI and automation can help remove, rather than simply speed up. And removing it can free up capacity, reduce errors and create the conditions for better customer service and, ultimately, improved business performance.
Imagine what your team could achieve if they spent less time moving information between systems and more time doing the work that genuinely needs them.
It's not because they don't want to. It's because the skill set required can be difficult to find.
Making this work requires someone who understands your business processes well enough to know what should be automated and who can also build the solution. Part process thinker, part developer. That person is hard to find, expensive to keep and difficult to keep busy full-time in a small or mid-sized business.
So the work either doesn't get done, or someone has a go in their spare time with a spreadsheet macro or a no-code tool that works until it doesn't.
What's changed is the economics. AI and low-code tools have made it far more practical to build small, purpose-built business applications quickly and affordably. Projects that once required significant development time and budget can now be within reach of businesses that would previously have struggled to justify them.
That's a genuine opportunity. But it comes with an important caveat.
I want to be straight about something, because it's the part that gets glossed over in most conversations about this.
AI has made it remarkably easy to produce something that works. Describe what you want in plain English, and you can generate working code. That's extraordinary, and it's one of the reasons building tailored solutions is becoming more accessible to businesses of all sizes.
But building something that works once is not the same as building something your business can depend on.
A prototype is a show home. Anyone can put one up; it demonstrates the layout, and nothing is lost if it falls over because nobody lives in it. A home you can actually live in needs solid foundations, reliable wiring and plumbing, secure locks, and someone responsible for maintaining all of it.
The questions that matter aren't just about whether you can build it. They're: what happens when it breaks at 9am on a Monday? Who do you call? Who checks that it stays fixed, and that your data stays where it should?
That's the difference between a demo and a system. It's also, in my experience, the difference between automation that delivers and automation that quietly becomes a liability.
For businesses, getting AI and automation right means thinking about security, reliability, governance and ongoing support from the outset, not bolting them on afterwards.
The biggest opportunity with AI isn't simply to help your team get through their existing workload a little faster. It's to rethink the work itself.
That starts with identifying the repetitive tasks that drain time, connecting the systems your people rely on, and building solutions that are secure, reliable and properly supported. The aim isn't to automate everything for the sake of it. It's to give your people more time to do the work that genuinely needs them.
For businesses willing to take that next step, AI and automation could mean fewer manual processes, less duplication, fewer avoidable errors and more capacity to grow without simply adding more people to the workload.
The challenge is knowing where to start, what to prioritise and how to make it work without introducing unnecessary risk.
On Thursday 26 November 2026, we're bringing clients, prospects and partners together in Somerset, just down the road from Bath and Bristol, for an evening exploring what AI and automation mean for businesses heading into 2027.
We'll cover what's actually working for businesses like yours, where automation can deliver value first, and how to adopt it without creating new risks.
We'll build a working business application live in the room, so you can see what the process genuinely involves. We'll also be honest about the governance and security considerations, alongside our partners at Check Point and Rewst.
There'll be a three-course dinner, plenty of time to compare notes with other business leaders, and a few games of darts to finish.
The aim is simple: you'll leave with a clearer understanding of what's possible, where the opportunities are in your own business, and what it takes to turn an interesting AI experiment into something you can rely on.
Places are limited. If the gap between using AI and actually changing how you work is something you've been wrestling with, I'd like you there.
If you'd like to join us on 26 November, register your interest using the form below. Alternatively, book a meeting with me to discuss where AI and automation could make a difference in your business.