I spend a lot of time with SME Boards, and I hear the same line repeatedly:
“We know AI matters, but we’re not ready to do anything with it yet.”
If you’re waiting to see how things play out, you’re in good company. Many other SME leaders are too. But here’s the catch: the businesses that are moving now aren’t just experimenting; they’re already pulling ahead on productivity and customer experience. The gap is widening every month. The University of St Andrews Business School released a study recently that showed “Adopting AI could boost the productivity of SMEs by up to 133%”.
If your business doesn’t have a plan for AI, two things could happen. Either you’ll fall behind competitors who are already finding efficiencies and new ways to serve customers. Or you’ll panic, jump in too fast, buy the wrong tools and waste time, money and trust. Neither outcome is one you can afford. And I and the Alcea team see these scenarios playing out regularly. Which is why I’m here, a kind of AI agony aunt, if you will, to help you navigate AI in a strategic, planned and considered way that’ll ultimately help you, help your business.
Why your Board can’t treat AI as a separate tech project
As an owner of an SME myself, I know that SMEs aren’t small players in the UK economy, they’re its backbone. According to Enterprise Nation they make up 99.8% of businesses, and employ millions of people across the country. If SMEs lag on AI, it doesn’t just hurt individual firms, it weakens growth, jobs and competitiveness across the country.
That’s why readiness must start at the top. AI adoption isn’t a tech project you can delegate. At its core it’s a business enabler and the key leadership question you need to ask is: Where do we want to go as a business, and how can AI help us get there?
Yet too many leadership teams still treat AI like a “departmental” issue. Marketing experiments with copywriting tools. HR dabbles in CV screening software. A few individuals try out ChatGPT. There’s no joined-up strategy, no oversight and no alignment on the risks or opportunities. That fragmented approach is dangerous.
When AI use happens in silos, businesses lose oversight of data security, create inefficiencies and sometimes even generate reputational risk. Shadow AI, when employees use tools without guidance or governance, is one of the biggest red flags our team see on a consistent basis when working with Boards and businesses.
The most common excuses I hear from leaders
When I ask leaders why they haven’t acted yet, their answers are strikingly consistent:
- “We don’t know where to start.”
- “We’re not sure which tools to trust.”
- “We know it’s important but there’s so many priorities right now.”
- “AI is on our to do list for the year, we’re just not sure what that means yet.”
And yet these are exactly the issues that get resolved fastest when leadership teams engage in structured conversations about AI.
The message? This isn’t about technology readiness. It’s about leadership readiness, training and upskilling and this extends to everyone from the CEO to the most junior apprentice.
So where do you start?
When we run Leadership AI Readiness workshops, we see the same transformation happen: Boards go from overwhelm to clarity in just a few hours.
The starting point isn’t a 200-page strategy. It’s a structured conversation about:
- Where you are now? What’s your business strategy? What are your business goals? How can AI help support?
- What’s in your way. Is it culture? Skills? Strategy? Data?
- What first step will build confidence. For some, that’s further readiness support, step by step so the foundations laid across the business are firm and secure. Sometimes, it’s about training and upskilling – starting with awareness and growing to a point of specific expertise depending on need. The point is to pick one step that’s strategic and achievable.
One CEO I worked with recently admitted they’d been stuck in “AI paralysis” for months. Their teams were testing tools in silos, but nothing felt joined up and no core business case had been done to understand the pain points that could most effectively be solved using AI tools. After a single Board session, they had a clear roadmap, three agreed pilot areas and most importantly, alignment across the leadership table. That’s what readiness does: It turns confusion into clarity.
That’s why I’m excited we’re launching the UK SME AI Readiness Check-up. It’s a short survey designed for leaders, to benchmark where your business really stands. It only takes a few minutes to complete, and by contributing you’ll be part of building clear and real insights of SME AI adoption. I’ll be sharing the findings in future columns here at Elite Business and building the results into a practical and actionable white paper to guide and provide actionable steps to businesses like yours.
The question every SME leader should ask
Most SME leaders I talk to want the same things from AI: To save time, to make better decisions, to support people, to stay competitive. These are core business goals.
So, let me ask you directly: Where would AI make the single biggest difference in your business today?
If you don’t have a clear answer, that’s not a weakness. It’s a sign that now is the moment to take your first step into readiness. Because the real risk isn’t being “behind” in 2025. It’s still being stuck in the same place in 2026.
* A YouGov poll shows 86% of SME leaders are familiar with AI, yet just 31% are actually using it. Familiarity won’t protect your business. Readiness will.
