In the AI Era, Growing UK SMBs' Building Strategy

The UK's more than 5 million small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) serve as the backbone of the economy, and are recently undergoing a transformation by adopting AI to boost operational efficiency and deliver better outcomes for customers.

According to a survey by Enterprise Nation, 71% of UK companies that have adopted AI are reducing time spent on repetitive tasks, while 64% are experiencing productivity gains. In particular, AI tools such as Google Workspace and Gemini are boosting SMB productivity by 20%, freeing up roughly a day's worth of work time each week.

The number of UK SMBs using Google Cloud has nearly doubled year-over-year. Companies are utilizing the Gemini models and AI Studio in the following areas:

• Customer Support: Building systems for rapid escalation and resolution of support calls
• Work Automation: Automating repetitive tasks in payroll and accounting
• Data Utilization: Enabling employees who are not data analytics experts to understand and use data
• Marketing and Research: Optimizing speed and cost for marketing design production and complex research projects

As real-world examples, fintech company Neural Alpha is using Gemini to complete environmental report analysis that used to take months in a fraction of the time, and security company Sep 2 is performing 24-hour threat monitoring through autonomous AI agents.