Rishi Sunak: 'I am convinced that AI can be the small business superpower'

By Rishi Sunak, The Office of Akshata Murty & Rishi Sunak

I am convinced that AI can be the small business superpower. Enabling you to achieve things that you never had the resources or the manpower to do before.

Now, I know that research by Enterprise Nation shows that only 21% of you are using AI regularly. We need to change this, and I want to set out why.

With all new technology, there is a lot of hype. But I am struck by how those on the frontline of developing this technology – such as Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, and Jack Clark, the co-founder of the frontier AI lab Anthropic – believe that it will have 10 times the impact of the industrial revolution in half the time.

Even if they are out by a factor of 10, AI is still going to have a seismic impact on our lives, our businesses, our country.

The need for adoption

Since leaving Downing Street, one of the things I've been doing is advising Anthropic, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. The work I have done with them has only left me more convinced of how much AI will change, and how quickly.

SMEs like yours are half the economy, but historically, they have lagged behind larger businesses when it comes to taking advantage of new technologies. Without the support, the structures and the time that big firms have, SMEs have been slower to adopt automation and cloud computing. We can't let this repeat with AI.

If SMEs don't adopt, we'll end up with a K-shaped economy, with SMEs either being taken over by big businesses or losing market share to them.

Lessons learnt

In the last few months, I have spent a lot of time talking to founders like you about how their businesses are using AI, and I want to share the most valuable lessons that I have learnt.

• You don't need to be an AI expert yourself. But you do need to be open to new ideas and prepared to push adoption from the top. You drive your business, and you can drive this technological change too.

• You need to build AI fluency across your organisation. And you have to build the right culture around its use. AI is not a substitute for hard work or creative thinking, but a force multiplier for it.

• You have got to engage your workforce. They have to be part of this change. They can't feel that AI is being done to them, imposed on their lives, or that it is going to make them redundant. You have got to show them what is in it for them, how it will allow them to spend more time on the bits of the job that actually get them out of bed in the morning, that give them a sense of purpose.

• Don't lose sight of how AI may change the sector you are operating in. To paraphrase Henry Ford, don't spend your time trying to build a faster horse.

• Identify where AI applies to your business. You can't delegate this to your IT person or an outside consultant. Why? Because it is fundamental to the question of how your business operates. Don't just think of AI as something that can make your firm more efficient. It can help it grow, too, allowing you to broaden your horizons and do more than you ever imagined you could as a small business.

• AI adoption is an iterative process. You start, you learn, you adjust. Don't be afraid of that: we learn by doing. The time to adopt is now. It is tempting to say: Let's wait and see how all this plays out. But do that, and you risk falling behind your competitors at the worst possible moment. Yet if you lead, if you seize this opportunity, you'll find that there has never been a better time to be a small business.

Why this can be your competitive advantage

AI could help you to leap ahead of big businesses, many of whom won't be as nimble as you.

They will be slower to act than you will be. They often have big internal bureaucracies to navigate, operational supertankers to turn round, while you can just decide and do.

Compounding that advantage, you know your whole business inside out. That puts you in a better position to see how AI can help every part of it.

AI could lead to a renaissance of small business across our country. So let's not let this opportunity slip.

Let's make your businesses, British small business more competitive, more dynamic, more innovative than they have ever been before. Let's build that enterprise nation.

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