AI is moving fast, and leaders are feeling it. The pressure is coming from every direction: employees using AI to support their work, competitors talking about automation, software vendors pushing new AI features, and internal demands to lower overheads and do more with fewer resources.
You’re not alone in facing that pressure. The British Chamber of Commerce found over half of UK firms now say they are actively using AI as part of their IT systems, up sharply from around a third in 2025. But most are using generic tools such as free versions of ChatGPT or Copilot, not deeply integrated solutions.
That is exactly why this needs a totally different conversation, away from asking whether your business is “AI ready”.
Are you under pressure to adopt AI before identifying your problems?
The government’s own AI adoption research found one of the biggest barriers to adoption is simply not having identified a use for AI in the organisation.
It also found that limited skills, integration complexity, unclear regulation, cost and data complexity are all holding businesses back. Even among firms already using AI, over half said limited skills and expertise had hindered wider adoption across the business.
This is also a reflection of the increasing skills gap and complexity that many SMEs, in particular, are fighting, in contrast to an entrepreneurial will to adopt and innovate fast.
That should sound familiar. Most SMEs are not struggling because they have never heard of AI; they are struggling because they are being pushed towards it without a clear commercial plan.
A rushed AI rollout can easily become another layer of cost, noise and distraction. You end up paying for licences, pilots, and tools that look progressive but don’t actually reduce admin, improve reporting, tighten forecasting or remove operational inefficiency.
The important question to ask is:
“Where is the friction in the business that is costing us time, money, or growth?”
From here, you can identify the best use for AI in your organisation. If your finance team is buried in repetitive reporting, customer service is slow, or management information is patchy, or if staff are stuck doing manual work that needs streamlining, those are business problems worth solving.
How to adopt AI into your roadmap
Use this 5-step framework to identify friction where AI could improve the bottom line.
1. Start with inefficiencies
Where is the business losing time, money, margin, or momentum? Think about key workflows around reporting, admin, customer response, scheduling, forecasting, document handling.
2. Check for repetition
If it happens once a month, AI may not be the answer. If it happens daily or across teams, it might be.
3. Check the data
Messy, unstructured data usually means poor outcomes. AI can only produce effective results when given high-quality data, so is there enough clean, accessible information for AI to work with?
4. Define the commercial win
It is critical to define the objectives you want AI to work towards. Lower overhead, faster turnaround, fewer errors, better insight, more capacity, improved customer experience.
5. Pilot one use case
Start small, measure time saved, cost reduced, or output improved. If you cannot measure the gain, it is probably not the right first AI project.
Pain + repetition + usable data + measurable outcome = credible AI use case.
Utilise an IT partner to integrate AI into your roadmap
SMEs with busy schedules and limited resources don’t always have the capacity to identify faults in their systems. This is where an IT partner like commited can help. We help SMEs bridge the gap between business goals and their technology, and as part of our services, we offer a full review of your existing technology. We’ll identify the flaws in your IT systems and services, then create a detailed plan of action and AI integration that aligns with your business needs and goals as an SME.
We’ll help you select the right AI tools to use in your daily operations and offer comprehensive support and training on how to effectively utilise automation to streamline workflows.
If you are considering an AI project but are unsure where to start, talk to us.
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