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Posted: Thu 12th Nov 2026
Want to know more about how AI can help your business? There’s so much hype; it can be hard to know where to start.
Grow London Local is interested in practical outcomes. In this guide, we help you identify opportunities to make your workday easier.
Find out why small businesses like yours are using AI and discover five ways you can start using it.
AI is a useful and dynamic tool that can save you time.
The last decade has seen a rapid growth in tools that empower business owners. From design programs like Canva to accounting software, it’s possible to streamline so much more – and AI is an extension of that trend.
The key difference from traditional software is that generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot are conversation-led. They create content like text and images from instructions that you give them, which are referred to as “prompts”, rather than having defined outputs.
Using these tools isn’t about changing the way you operate overnight. It starts with identifying a simple task where there’s an opportunity to save time.
And it’s not about replacing people either. Human judgement and expertise are essential to getting the best out of AI tools.
The biggest benefit of AI is the opportunity to save time. AI can act as a practical assistant, carrying out repetitive tasks where minimal judgement is required.
Emails, meeting notes and business documents are a good place to start. Let’s look at some practical examples:
Replying to a customer complaint: Draft responses based on their email and your FAQ page.
Recording meeting actions: Transcribe meetings and create to-do lists for team members using tools like Granola and Google Meet.
Applying for a grant: Create a first draft of different sections of the application based on existing information.
AI is also great at research tasks (you may need to give your tool permission to access the internet). That could mean summarising the positioning of local competitors or shortlisting potential event venues.
Saving 20 minutes here and a few hours there adds up. And it means you’re spending more of your time on tasks that move your business forward.
Example: A potential customer filled out a website form asking an events agency to organise its annual team day. The business owner schedules a call to discuss their needs and requirements before sending a proposal.
Before AI (90 minutes): Call notes are handwritten. The key points are then typed into the agency's pricing calculator and the results recorded in a quote document, which is shared via email.
With AI (20 minutes): An AI tool transcribes the call and produces a summary. An AI Skill* is created to produce a quote and the accompanying email based on these details and the company’s product set. The business owner double-checks the quote, personalises the email, and hits send.
* An AI Skill is a set of instructions that an AI tool uses to carry out in-depth tasks. These are called Gems on Gemini and might have a different name depending on the AI platform you use.
It can be hard to write a new LinkedIn post or record an Instagram video when you’re staring at a blank page.
AI can help you get started, whether it’s providing a sounding board to refine an idea or an outline for a blog post.
It can also rewrite and adapt content for different audiences. That might mean turning an article into LinkedIn posts or a webinar transcript into an Instagram Reel script.
When your draft is ready to review, AI tools can also proofread your work and make suggestions on improving its clarity, tone and structure.
Example: A coach who builds women’s confidence through boxing wants to publish a series of five blog posts that encourage busy, career-focused women to start exercising.
Before AI (60 minutes): Getting started with a new exercise routine is a key blocker for potential customers, and advice on the subject is likely to generate leads. However, it’s a large topic, and it takes time to research and draft content for five blog posts.
With AI (25 minutes): The business owner describes their objective to an AI tool and asks it to question them on the topic, so that they can draft the briefs together. Once they’ve defined the topics, they add details like suggested word counts and SEO keyword targets. They now have a detailed plan for creating the content.
AI offers great support for analysing text and organising information. It’s especially useful for researching business ideas and learning about new topics:
Summarising documents: Upload a report on your sector or a government tender, so you can quickly understand the key points and ask questions.
Supporting market research: Analyse transcripts of calls with potential customers to spot trends and identify common challenges.
Learning new topics: Use voice mode to have a conversation with your AI and learn something new.
You can ask AI to take on a role that suits your use case by including it in your prompt:
“I’m thinking of launching a bakery on Clapham High Street and want to research the competition. Pretend you’re a first-time customer looking at the websites of similar businesses in the area. What stands out and what’s confusing?”
Example: A London-based brewery wants to understand how to export to the EU and research distributors that can give them access to new markets.
Before AI (six hours): With countless online articles and forum posts about exporting, the business owner spends a significant amount of time researching and reading content from different sources to understand the subject and figure out how to get started.
With AI (two hours): The business owner uses Claude’s Research function to define the project and produce a detailed introduction that’s personalised to their needs (ChatGPT and Gemini’s research modes are called “Deep Research”). The business owner can read the document easily and start making plans.
We just looked at AI’s ability to organise information and support research. The next step is to introduce data.
Before we get started, it's important to note that any data you share is being processed by the AI tool. That means you need to comply with UK GDPR and be comfortable with any security implications.
There are three main ways AI can use data to support your decision-making process:
Categorising: Tag data like expenses or customer orders.
Summarising: Evaluate information in spreadsheets.
Learning: Understand financial concepts.
A cash flow or profit and loss report is a good place to start. Upload the document so the platform can review your financials, and then ask follow-up questions to dig deeper.
This kind of financial analysis can be used for one-off tasks or built into your financial routine. For example, you can connect a platform like Claude to your accounting software to produce monthly financial summaries.
Customer feedback is another area where AI can offer deep insight. It can analyse large numbers of reviews or customer questions to identify patterns. That can lead to better reporting and inform updates to your FAQ, product descriptions and more.
Example: The owners of a branding and communications agency have plenty of work coming in but regularly find themselves short on cash. They want to understand why and find ways to increase the amount of money they have in the bank.
Before AI (four hours): The founders pore over the numbers, but it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. They can find lots of guides on improving cash flow, but the advice isn’t specific to their business. It takes a long time for them to identify practical opportunities to improve the situation.
With AI (two hours): The owners upload a cash flow report and a list of invoices for the last 12 months. Next, they ask the AI tool to question them to get the context it needs before listing opportunities to improve cash flow in order of priority. They then hold a meeting to work through the list, verify the opportunities and decide what to prioritise.
Customer communications are a critical part of every business. Whether that’s replying to Instagram comments or website enquiries, they’re likely to be part of your weekly routine.
The human touch is important here. Customers want to feel taken care of and may react negatively to text that feels like it was written by AI. However, AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Part of the process is finding the relevant information in a knowledge bank or looking at previous responses. AI can reference your FAQ and even be connected to your Customer Relationship Management software.
It can also identify gaps in your documentation. Whether that’s information customer service reps have available, articles on your blog or your FAQ.
Example: A natural skincare brand for kids wants to speed up its responses to customer queries.
Before AI (20 minutes): The business receives lots of similar questions from customers about its products, including what age they’re suitable for and the impact on eczema-prone skin. The owner writes manual replies to each, answering their questions and including useful resources.
With AI (five minutes): Using an AI tool, the business owner creates an AI Project that references the company’s blog, an internal FAQ, product specifications and the company style guide. The Project Instructions are set up so that the tool drafts a response when the owner pastes in a customer query. The response is written in the correct style, answers the question and links to useful content. The response just needs to be checked and edited before it’s sent.
ChatGPT and Claude allow you to organise your work in Projects. This includes reference documents and Instructions, which means the tool always has the context it needs.
Before we get to the final section on how to make AI work for your business, it’s useful to look at the common mistakes people make:
Focus: A large number of AI tools are being released, and they all promise to be revolutionary. It’s easy to get distracted, so always start with the business problem you need to solve.
Accuracy: AI can make mistakes. It’s important to check key facts, build robust processes and keep a human in the loop.
Overwhelm: Don’t try to use AI for every task at once. It’s best to experiment with individual use cases and build from there.
Privacy: AI platforms process any data you share, which means you have to check the UK GDPR and security considerations.
Assistant: Human expertise and oversight are critical. AI can be an incredible assistant – but it can’t replace your knowledge or creativity.
We’ve covered five practical ways AI can be used to make running your business easier.
It’s best to start with repetitive, low-judgement tasks. What easy task would you love to complete more quickly?
If knowing where to start feels overwhelming, pick one challenge and begin experimenting. It’s best to learn by doing.
AI can give you more time to focus on high-quality work – and you’ll be better prepared. This isn’t about using AI to replace yourself or your team members. The goal is to combine AI assistance with human expertise and judgement.
Grow London Local has more resources available for business owners who want to learn about and start using AI:
Ready to unlock new opportunities for your business? Our Business Success Check is a free tool designed to help you start or grow your business – get tailored support now.
