In May 2024, we published our annual 2024 Work Trend Index report, a joint report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, which explores how AI will change work and the labor market as a whole. As we reviewed the data, unexpected themes emerged: Employees are ahead of the companies that hire them to adopt AI when it comes to working with AI. Employees are bringing their own AI to the workplace, but they are not receiving the training, oversight, and data protection necessary to use it responsibly and safely. And with even more employees in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) engaging in “Bring Your Own AI” (BYOAI), it is imperative that SMB leaders quickly develop a vision and plan for AI in the workplace. Below are key insights from the Work Trend Index report that may impact SMB leaders, and actions they can take to prepare their organizations for AI and better leverage its benefits to stay competitive.
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Leaders need to catch up with AI adoption
Many SMB employees around the world are already using AI tools. But while SMB leaders agree that adopting AI is essential to stay competitive, 61% also say they lack the vision and plan to adopt AI at their companies. SMB employees are taking things into their own hands and keeping their use of AI in the workplace secret, with 80% of SMB employees bringing their own AI tools to work. Yet, 49% are reluctant to admit they use AI for their most critical tasks. This gap between vision and reality highlights an opportunity for business leaders to build a comprehensive AI strategy for their business, which can free up more time for customers, products, and services.
Small businesses see AI as a competitive advantage
SMB leaders want AI-savvy talent for roles within their companies, with over 60% saying they wouldn't hire someone without AI skills. 79% of SMB employees believe AI skills would increase their job opportunities. Providing training and encouraging AI adoption is key to retaining employees and attracting new talent. Employees and leaders agree that improving AI skills is key.
Co-pilot at work: How AI is helping Joos
AI can be a game-changer by helping you and your team save time and allow you to focus on what matters most to you and your business. One example of the impact of AI in a small business organization is Joos, a UK-based supplier of mobile charging stations that has a growing international presence despite a relatively small team. When Joos leaders implemented Copilot for Microsoft 365 and made it available across the organization, operational tasks were immediately streamlined, allowing employees to focus more on customers.
“Since integrating Copilot, our customers have benefited from faster email responses and more personalized interactions as Copilot helps us better understand and anticipate their needs.”
—Jeannette Ikonga, Head of Client Success and Customer Experience, Joos
The road ahead for SMBs and AI
The opportunity for SMB leaders is to translate their employees' enthusiasm for AI into business transformation. While the plan will look different for every company, here's how to get started:
First things first Identify business problems and apply AIYou can expect efficiency gains across functions, but choosing the right process is key. To make this easier, identify employees who are passionate about AI and form a small group to serve as AI champions. Once you've selected a process, make sure you can track its impact. For example, if you apply it to customer service, track how much faster calls are handled and how that success impacts other parts of your business.
Integrate AI tools across your organization. Using AI within your existing infrastructure can help you deliver personalized, relevant, and actionable responses. To best manage your data protection and privacy policies and practices, choose AI tools that can be easily used with existing security measures within your enterprise infrastructure. Also, conduct a quick privacy audit before you begin your rollout to ensure that data is properly labeled and only those who need to access files have access.
We adopt a top-down, bottom-up approach. Moving from experimentation to transformation requires the involvement of the entire organization. Since SME employees tend to have close ties to management, you need to ensure that the plan is aligned with the vision they are already driving. The plan should include a clear, guided process that everyone can follow to enable AI in their teams and daily work. An AI champion can be extremely helpful here, driving the plan, ensuring adoption goes smoothly, and encouraging employees to develop AI aptitude and ultimately use it more creatively. AI should be widely adopted across different functions and roles so that employees can share insights and learn from each other.
lastly, Make training a priority.Even if you're an AI power user, you can't do it alone. You need ongoing training, both on universal tasks and on how to use it tailored to your role and function. AI training and implementation resources that can help SMBs successfully leverage AI are readily available online, such as LinkedIn Learning's AI courses and the Copilot scenario library with guided examples on how to use AI in specific workflows. But online training is only half the battle; group training is also essential. SMBs have an advantage here, because these discussions can cover the impact of AI across a broad range of their business. It can also help them identify enthusiastic employees to develop into AI champions.
