“AI can be applied to anything, but the key is whether it actually delivers good returns,” says Nitin Jain, vice president of corporate strategy at Conduent. “Sometimes you’re looking for something that’s very manual in nature. Sometimes it’s very high-volume. We take a business problem and then we come up with a plan.”
As small and medium-sized businesses grapple with the use of AI and where to start, executives at one solution provider say the next stage of AI adoption will not be about chasing the shiny tool, but choosing the right problem to solve.
“AI can be applied to anything, but it’s about actually getting the full benefit,” says Nitin Jain, vice president of corporate strategy at Conduent, a Florham Park, N.J.-based solution provider included in CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500 list. “Sometimes you’re looking for something that’s very manual in nature, and sometimes you’re looking for something that’s very high-volume. We take these business problems and then create a plan.”
He said the most powerful AI use cases revolve around heavy or manual workloads bogged down by information that humans must read, interpret, and re-enter. Additionally, AI plans often start on a small scale rather than a full deployment, Jain said.
[Related: ‘Real Pilots, Real Implementations, Real Results:’ Conduent Says AI Experience Center Shows Impact Of AI-Driven Results]
“Why not do a small pilot and see if you can apply the technology to solve an area,” he told CRN. “If it works, what’s the next step? How can we move to a real production solution?”
AI doesn’t work in isolation, so a step-by-step approach is important for SMBs. Expecting things to work “out of the box” is also a common mistake, the executive said.
“You’re going to connect it to all your existing systems, all the different systems that you have,” he said. “So it’s about being close to the client, understanding their technology environment, understanding what’s already there.”
But once the technology is in place, the work isn’t done. In the third stage, companies revisit what worked and what didn’t and make adjustments as necessary. According to Jain, this step is usually overlooked, but is essential to pinpointing the value of an AI tool.
“If things aren’t going well, sometimes I just quit,” he said. “That’s part of being realistic.”
As for where AI will go next, Jain and Tony Marino, Conduent’s chief administrative officer, predict an environment where machines can process information that is “messy, inconsistent, and unstructured.”
“There’s a common denominator: unstructured information like documents and call logs. It’s everywhere, and that’s where the real power of generative AI comes into play,” says Jain.
Marino said manufacturing processes remain strong candidates for AI because they are highly repeatable. But he sees it differently in small businesses, particularly those run by single owners, where adoption is being driven by consumer-facing AI tools used in sales, marketing, and other roles. In these cases, AI is used as a creative assistant rather than an automated system.
“They may be leading the way,” he says.
