Where AI earns its keep in a small business — and where it doesn't

This summer Simply Business asked 1,842 UK small business owners about AI. 47% now use it, up from 22% a year before. Only 19% call themselves very confident with it. So most of the firms using it aren't sure they're using it well.

That fits what the tools are like to live with. Getting AI to produce something is easy. Knowing which job in your week it should take off your hands — and which it will quietly make worse — is the hard part.

A useful test: AI earns its keep on work that is repetitive, written down, and checked by you before it goes anywhere. Turning rough notes into a proper quote. Drafting the chaser for an invoice that's gone quiet. Pulling this week's numbers into one message. It's a poor fit for anything that needs judgement you can't check, or that reaches a customer without you seeing it first.

So before you pay for anything, write down the three jobs that eat most of your week. For each one: how often does it happen, how long does it take, and what goes wrong when it's late? The one with the clearest answers is the place to start — and start with one. Two or three things done properly beat twenty done badly.

Groundwork is that exercise, done with you. We go through how your business actually runs, then put in writing where AI would pay for itself — including the honest answer if nothing is worth building yet. It's £500, and it comes off whatever we then build — refunded if the plan isn't worth it to you.