How to introduce AI to your team – without needing to lose staff

If you run a small business, you can feel the tension building. You hear the promises – AI will save time, cut costs and lift productivity.

Then you see the headlines and you can almost predict the mood in a team meeting. People do not hear "productivity". They hear "job losses".

That anxiety isn't imaginary. One survey reports 27% of UK workers fear losing their job to AI within five years.

Workplace expert and mediator Acas also found 26% of workers worry AI will lead to job losses, alongside concerns about errors and weak rules.

Ronke Fashola, founder of Love ur Look 

When AI doesn't replace creativity, but amplifies it

If you're a founder, you have a choice at this point. You can try to ignore the fear and crack on. Or, you can meet it head-on with a clear position that protects trust.

Independent fashion brand founder Ronke Fashola thinks AI has had a good effect, allowing her to expand her team in the longer term.

Ronke's business, Love ur Look, is all about dopamine dressing. But when the post-COVID retail slump hit her 11-year-old company, she embraced AI, not as a replacement for creativity, but as a tool to amplify it.

"I got to a point where everyone was struggling financially. I still wanted the business to be successful, but at that point, I couldn't afford to pay my amazing print designer.

"I launched an entire collection designed using AI – and it sold remarkably well."

But instead of replacing her print designer, Ronke – who runs the business from a farm office in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire – says the technology enhanced their collaboration.

"We did a print together and then we used AI to do loads of different colour versions. We used AI to put it onto clothing and she found it cut her time in half, so it's all worked out really well."

The new technology has boosted Ronke's confidence and means she's now looking for investment to take her business up a notch.

"I've been doing amazing images of stores, visualising what I want my brand to look like and also using that to hopefully pitch for investment."

Despite AI's transformative impact, Ronke is clear-eyed about what it can and can't do.

"We'll still need to train it, we'll still need it to be coded and have all the information put in so it understands what we require."

The technology has allowed her small team – comprising freelance social media support, a web developer, and occasional picking and packing help – to punch above their weight.

But it hasn't replaced the human creativity and connection at the heart of Ronke's brand.

Some unease and caution is understandable

Liz Penrose, founder of Love 2 Craft, is more cautious. She says:

"I agree AI can be used for both good and bad. I use AI every day in my business, whether that's reviewing work I've already put together or helping me expand into specific areas more effectively.

"That said, I do think there's a very real issue around AI replacing roles, often driven by cost-cutting.

"We're already seeing this in manufacturing, where robots and AI are used to make sure processes are completed accurately and efficiently.

"It feels inevitable that other roles, such as customer services, call centres and administrative position, will increasingly be replaced or heavily reduced as AI capability grows."

Preston-based Enterprise Nation member Christopher Ross has started a business called Datumra that helps other small firms adopt AI. He says:

"We're seeing a huge shift in our economy, as big as the industrial and electrical revolutions. My opinion is that jobs won't disappear, but they'll certainly change.

"I do think that change is likely to be positive in the long term, but it's a big adjustment. And I completely understand why so many people feel uneasy right now.

"The bigger risk I see isn't AI replacing jobs, but businesses failing to adapt and falling behind those that do. For smaller teams in particular, AI can be the difference between constantly firefighting and having a sustainable way of working."

A former Invisible Technologies partner, Christopher knows what he's talking about.

While working at the second-fastest growing AI firm in the US in 2024, he was part of a team providing AI training services to around 80% of the world's leading AI model builders, including OpenAI, Cohere and AI21 Labs.

And one of his major successes while there was supporting the early ChatGPT launches with OpenAI.

How to approach introducing AI to your team

1. Frame AI as changing tasks, not threatening jobs

The position that works is simple – use AI to change tasks, not to put jobs at risk.

That framing is backed by the wider evidence. The International Labour Organisation estimates that generative AI could transform around one in four jobs, which is a different story from mass, instant replacement.

2. Augment, don't automate judgement

This is where many small firms go wrong. They make AI sound like a magic wand – or, worse, a cost-cutting weapon.

Both trigger resistance, so the more credible approach is "augment, don't automate judgement".

People will accept tools that help them do their jobs better. They won't put up with tools that quietly take decisions away from them.

A CIPD poll found 63% would trust AI to inform important work decisions, but not make them.

That one stat tells you how to structure your plan for adoption. Let AI do the prep. Keep humans accountable for judgement, quality and customer outcomes.

3. There's still headroom, which is the opportunity

It also matches where the UK actually is. This is not yet "AI everywhere".

ONS data suggests 25% of businesses report using some form of AI, with 15% planning to adopt in the next three months.

The British Chambers of Commerce has reported 35% of SMEs say they are actively using AI, up from 25% in 2024.

In other words, plenty of headroom remains. You can still get ahead. You just need to start in the right place. And the right place is the admin that quietly drains your time every week.

4. Use AI where time leaks first

Think about how a typical week really goes. It isn't the big, strategic work that burns you out, but the grinding accumulation of small, menial tasks.

This is where AI earns its keep in a small business. It clears the undergrowth so your people can do the parts that actually need a human.

5. Begin with finance admin

Start with finance admin, because that's where the hours leak. You can use AI to speed up categorisation, draft plain-English summaries of spend, highlight anomalies to check and prepare the prompts that make your month-end faster.

The sign-off, however, stays human, and that's the key point.

6. Apply it to triage, not decisions

Then move to customer service and operations, where the burden is usually triage, not decision-making.

AI can summarise a thread, pull out what the customer is actually asking for, draft a response and suggest next steps. The human still decides what's fair and necessary.

Trust is a leadership task

None of this works, though, if your team thinks AI is a stealth plan towards redundancy. So you need to say the quiet part out loud, early and in plain English.

A simple message is enough: "We're using AI to remove admin, not to cut roles. AI can suggest, but a human decides. Nothing goes to customers without a human check."

This would address the growing elephant in the room, and is a practical response to a real concern that's now been measured.

Making one change this week

So what should you do this week, in the real world, with real constraints?

Pick one admin-heavy workflow that annoys your team. As mentioned, finance admin is usually the best place to start, but customer triage or CRM follow-ups work too. Add one AI step that speeds up preparation but doesn't make decisions.

The government is now pushing capability as well as adoption, including an Employer AI Adoption Checklist from Skills England, which is a useful quick self-test for any small firm.

Tell your team, plainly, what AI is for and what it isn't, and keep a human check on anything that goes out of the business.

If you do that, the narrative becomes coherent. The context is a fear of job losses. But the small business response is disciplined, human-first adoption that removes admin, protects standards and gives your team more time for the work only they can do.

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