How small businesses can leverage AI

Leveraging AI for Small Businesses: A Game-Changer?

From accounting to design to market research and product development, there's a staggering breadth of skills needed to run a business. A large company can hire experts to handle these tasks, but small businesses don't always have this luxury. That's where AI comes in. Today's AI models do a decent job at these tasks, but the trick for small businesses is to understand where AI is good enough and where it's not.

A Private Tutor's Secret to Success

Sam Finnegan-Dehn works in fundraising for a charity, but he moonlights as a math and philosophy tutor for university students from his home in London. Through this part-time business, he can leverage his degrees in philosophy and share his love of the subject with clients. But meeting with students is only a fraction of the work it takes to be a good tutor. He also plans lessons and finds fresh reading materials, creates assignments, sends invoices, and keeps up with new research—all on top of his regular job.

Given these demands, Finnegan-Dehn doesn't have as much time as he'd like to grow his tutoring roster. So he's turned to AI for some help in managing the day-to-day aspects of his business. He says AI has taken on a secretarial role across all of his digital notebooks, where he jots down reminders about his clients' progress and new readings to keep himself up-to-date. He describes using AI as kind of like having a second memory that helps him connect ideas he's written down in various places.

Notion AI: A Powerful Virtual Assistant

Finnegan-Dehn has experimented with different tools like Claude and ChatGPT, but he's now landed on Notion AI because it integrates better with his tutoring notes, which live across his notebook tabs in the Notion app. Notion AI helps him with goal-setting, drafting lesson notes, invoicing, and generating and syncing social media posts. For goal-setting, for example, Finnegan-Dehn says he understands his long-term goals for his business but not always the concrete steps to build to them. He uses AI to help fill in these gaps.

The Tool: Notion AI

Notion has been a big player in note-taking software for many years. Its AI add-on, released in late 2023, now has tools that enable it to interact with many other online productivity platforms. There's an email client, calendar integrations, and a newly released agent. And while this level of access has raised privacy concerns, it can also make for a pretty powerful virtual assistant. Many of the tasks targeted by Notion AI are less creative and more rote: syncing information across documents or searching through old scribbles, for example.

Other Companies Developing AI Tools

Other companies are developing tools targeted at specific industries. For example, Grandma's Quilt Shop in Yuma, Arizona, uses Rain, which has a software suite tailored to craft companies, to generate inventory descriptions and pricing for its stock of fabric designs. The owners claim this AI tool cuts the time it takes to list items by 60 to 80%.

Drawbacks and Considerations

While AI can be a game-changer for small businesses, there are drawbacks and considerations to keep in mind. Finnegan-Dehn described some of Notion AI's idiosyncrasies as "clunky" at times. And the AI add-on for Notion costs $20 per month. As with all new tools, small business owners should carefully assess how the potential gains and headaches measure up against the cost of just doing the job themselves.

User Tips

Consider these points when thinking about whether AI might be able to help you run a business, or make any part of your work life just a little bit easier:

Look before you leap. Since LLMs feed on the data you input to answer your queries or complete tasks, you want to give them information in a way that's convenient for you and for the model.
Work to your strengths. Think about what skills you lack in-house, and see if AI can either help with training or take these tasks on for you.
AI isn't always the best tool. It's okay to use something off the shelf when that's the better choice.
Consider using local models for any sensitive information.

Conclusion

AI is no longer just a buzzword; it's a reality that's changing the way we work and live. For small businesses, AI can be a game-changer, helping to automate tasks, improve productivity, and gain a competitive edge. But it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. By understanding where AI is good enough and where it's not, small business owners can harness its power to drive growth and success.

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/02/1138227/how-small-businesses-can-leverage-ai/