A business AI Productivity toolbox for SMEs

Micro to medium enterprises have been significantly disrupted by COVID-19, and face staff shortages, disruption to their business model, and a dramatic need to lower costs. This temporary shock has scared the economy's future potential and the onslaught of business failures, cancelled investments and unemployment bring longer-term impacts.

We want to provide a toolbox of "on-rails" Artificial Intelligence (AI) productivity projects that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can implement without needing extensive additional external support. We are delivering an opportunity to them to learn how AI can generate value, save costs and generate revenue and growth opportunities for them. The AI market is predicted to grow to $169.4B by 2025 with significant startup activity. The AI market is at the early stages and UK SME's need to be prepared before their competitors are. Our AI toolbox will support SME's to adopt many of the core AI quick wins and make an important shift in making their business AI-ready.

For example;
- Augmenting customers service roles with AI chatbots (Customer Services, Sales, IT, HR etc)
- Optimising sales process with Sales AI
- Increasing knowledge worker productivity via Robotic Process Automation and Knowledge Mining;
- Automated digital experiences using Cognitive AI solutions,

The more that UK SMEs adapt to this changed world the better. Adopting AI into their business and their operations make good business sense.SMEs don't have the time or the cashflow to support extended and complicated technical projects so our aim is to deliver online guided i.e. "on-rails" interfaces towards design, deployment, and rollout of these AI projects to see success quickly. We want SME's to feel cost-savings and revenue opportunities quickly. These AI technologies are cutting edge and innovative but the really innovative area is the "on-rails" capability. The guided deployments will unlock AI for this sector of businesses and help them bounce back and become competitive.

EXTENSION FOR IMPACT
The aftermath of the first wave of COVID has meant that businesses have had to cut costs and do more with less. However, it has also led to heightened awareness and increased openness to digitalisation and automation. In this extension, we will continue to market our GoSmarter solutions to SMEs across the UK. Based on key learnings, we will also go sector-specific and focus on Manufacturing and Digital Marketing sectors to deliver greater impact. Both sectors are major contributors to the economy with an estimated 137,000 manufacturers and 250,000 marketing agencies in the UK. We will develop customised features, greater onboarding support, and target content to add greater value to these sectors. This extra support will help them to adopt automation tools helps them to save time and 'future proof' their business operations during these very challenging times.