How SMBs Can Transition from AI Experimentation to Business Transformation 

If your business has experimented with AI, that’s a great first step. Dabbling with different tools allows you to figure out how AI is shaping the future of work, where AI can help and get your teams comfortable with using it for their jobs.   

Eventually, you’ll need to choose specific tools to invest in and make a concerted effort to get your people to adopt them. To do that, you’ll need to:  

• Identify the business problems that AI could solve and choose tools built to address them, creating as much value as possible.   

• Recruit AI champions and super users at all levels of your company, from the C-suite on down, who can get people excited about what your chosen AI tools can do for them.  

• Leverage those super users and any available training materials to give your people the confidence they need to use those tools to their full potential.  

• Find a technology partner who can ensure that the process is successful. 

Identify Business Problems  

Almost every team at any SMB could potentially boost their efficiency and productivity with AI tools. The key is to pick a team with a problem that AI could help solve (and are receptive to leading the way on AI within your company). For example:  

• Are your customer service rep call times running too long? An AI tool trained on your company’s products and policies could provide the resources they need to handle issues more quickly.  

• Are your sales reps spending more time entering orders than actually selling? AI could automate order entry, even with paper forms, putting everything into a centralized and easily accessible data repository.   

• Are your sales reps missing up-selling and cross-selling opportunities? AI can identify and recommend additional products based on customer data and tendencies. It can also determine when customers may be due for a reorder of previously purchased products.  

• Is everyone spending too much time summarizing meetings and sending emails back and forth? AI can help boil meetings down into digestible bullet points and generate email drafts that help avoid the anxiety of the blank screen.  

AI can also use its analytical might to help forecast demand, track inventory and optimize things like delivery routes based on both internal and external data.   

The most important thing to do is to communicate with the C-suite, team leaders and team members to determine key pain points that could be addressed with AI tools. Getting feedback early and often will help focus your investments on tools that will generate the most value. It will also involve the eventual end-users, making them more comfortable with the transition to the eventual new solution.   

Determine Super Users  

Another way to gain buy-in across your company is by finding people who are enthusiastic about AI. As with any technology, some early adopters become super users and evangelists for AI’s potential, and their enthusiasm can help lead the charge.   

Who has been spearheading your team’s experimentation efforts? Who has been showing curiosity about AI’s potential? Identify them and encourage them to share the results of their work with the team. Then, bring them into the decision-making fold. They’ll have insights to share and also likely have the energy and motivation to convince your company’s more skeptical leaders about the potential benefits of adopting AI tools.   

If there aren’t any obvious super users yet, communicate with team members to gauge how much they’re already using AI and what their feelings are about the tech. Someone may be curious or even passionate about it, however hasn’t shared it yet! After all, some people hesitate to admit that they use AI at work because they’re worried it makes them look replaceable.   
  
This people-driven approach will ensure that AI doesn’t feel like it’s a demand being forced upon your team. Instead, it’s a collaborative effort to improve their day-to-day work experiences and overall efficiency and productivity.  

Leverage Super Users for Training  

Once you’ve identified your company’s super users, you haven’t found evangelists — you’ve also found a de facto training staff. They’ve probably already been using LinkedIn Learning and the Copilot Scenario Library to enhance their skills, and they’ll be happy to share what they’ve learned.  

First, consult with them about the training they’ve already done so that you can pass the right materials and tools along to the team. Then, determine if they would be interested in conducting hands-on training themselves. Your employees will likely be more receptive to learning a new technology if known and trusted co-workers are helping teach it. And the more super-user AI trainers you can find across teams and functions, the more you can start to tailor their training based on the specific tools you’re implementing and the roles you’re hoping to enhance.  

Finding an Expert Tech Partner 

Crossing the threshold between experimentation and transformation can certainly be intimidating. Mere experimentation is unfocused and unlikely to lead to the kinds of gains that AI is capable of unlocking. To take that big next step, it helps to find a partner with experience implementing new and emerging enterprise technology. Enavate is one such partner, and we can help you implement Microsoft’s leading AI tech for your SMB. To learn more, reach out to our expert team today.