Practical ways small businesses can use AI today

AI is moving quickly, and many small business owners are feeling left behind.

According to a recent study by Statistics Canada, 20 per cent of businesses with four or fewer employees leveraged AI in the previous 12 months, compared with 28 per cent of those with 100 employees or more.

“As small business owners, we’re control freaks,” says Tiffany DaSilva, an independent growth consultant. “We want to have control over our messaging, over our stuff, so when something is saying it can do things better than us, we’re hesitant.”

As a tech “early adopter,” Ms. DaSilva says she recognized that AI would become a big part of her work and so took courses and read newsletters to be sure she could use it in a safe way. Then, once she started using AI, she began to see how much it could do.

“For my clients, it helps me bring together data from different tools in a way that used to take hours of research and analyzing,” Ms. DaSilva says. “It helps me prepare for conversations beyond my expertise… It’s even helped me negotiate prices when I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

She notes that some business owners may resist AI adoption out of privacy and security concerns. Some are too overwhelmed by the various tools and capabilities to find a reasonable starting point and many simply don’t have the time to learn how to use them. But with care and best practices, there are low cost, low-stakes options to improve operations without compromising data.

Pick your platform

Kicking off an AI journey as a small business owner might begin with exploring one of the major generative AI platforms, says Ms. DaSilva, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude or Perplexity AI.

“Don’t try to learn everything,” she advises. “Just pick one.”

Small business AI growth consultant Laura Connor says that while subscribing to a new platform might offer additional capabilities, those who are more hesitant to try something new can still make significant progress by expanding their usage of the tools they already know.

“Most people are using Google or Microsoft already,” she says. “You might not have to go purchase something brand new if you’re already using the Google or Microsoft suite.”

Help with admin tasks

Both Ms. Connor and Ms. DaSilva say that one of the first areas where AI can be of help is basic admin work, such as answering phones, responding to emails and managing schedules.

Such tasks can be automated by connecting services like ChatGPT or Claude to email and calendar apps, especially for the most predictable tasks. For example, AI can help answer basic questions regarding hours, location and product availability.

“A lot of times small business owners have tonnes of emails coming into their inbox, and you can use AI to answer the general ones,” Ms. Connor says. “Then you only have to respond to the important ones.”

Services like RingCentral, Vellum, Smith.AI and Rosie AI also offer similar functionality for phone calls.

“Most business owners will tell you that if somebody calls and they can’t reach that plumber or electrician or dentist, they’re going to hang up and call the next one,” Ms. Connor says. “You can have an AI receptionist that can handle the call and book an appointment for you.”

She adds that with phone and email managed by AI, small business owners can spend more time with clients. AI can also attend meetings, take notes, set reminders and answer questions about them later.

Ms. DaSilva says that AI notepad Granola has been a “life changer” for her.

“When you have back-to-back meetings, it does the transcription for you, and then you can ask it questions afterwards,” she says.

Marketing materials and ideas

Many small businesses manage their own marketing, even if they aren’t marketers by trade. While there’s a lot they can accomplish on their own, they can often do more with a little help from AI.

“It’s so important in today’s day and age that you have an online presence, that you have social media posts, that you have a website, that you are putting content out, because your potential clients are going to be looking for you online,” Ms. Connor says.

When it comes to creating professional grade marketing materials, such as logos, presentations, posters and graphics, both Ms. Connor and Ms. DaSilva recommend Canva. The company recently launched Canva AI 2.0, a conversational design platform that uses natural language prompts and voice commands to help users generate visual content.

“Hooking up Canva to Claude for your marketing stuff works really well too,” says Ms. DaSilva.

She notes that Loom AI and Descript are handy tools for videos.

“I do a lot of videos for clients, so having [AI] do the transcripts and come up with ideas is really helpful.”

Support for legal matters

Between employee contracts and lease agreements, patent filings and licensing requirements, small business owners spend a lot of time – not to mention money – managing their legal needs.

While AI can’t and shouldn’t replace a lawyer, it can answer some basic questions and help small business owners have more informed conversations, says Ms. DaSilva.

“I’ve been in situations where I can’t necessarily afford legal input, but sometimes you just need to know your options,” she says. “Are these the only options out there, or is there something else I can ask my lawyer about, and can you do the research for me?”

Approach AI with caution and care

AI can be a game changer for small businesses, but it can also introduce a few unexpected challenges if you’re not careful.

For example, most major AI platforms use user inputs to help train their models, which could compromise sensitive business or customer information. That is why Ms. Connor suggests removing that permission in the platform’s settings.

“Make sure that security is set up so that your information isn’t being used to train AI platforms,” she says. “That’s a huge security risk.”

Ms. Connor also emphasizes the importance of verifying information provided by AI platforms, and carefully reviewing any materials it produces before publishing, posting, emailing or using them externally.

“AI can give you answers that sound really confident, but they are really wrong,” she warns. “If you don’t take that time to control the final product or you have the final say, you could end up implementing or giving your customer something totally wrong.”