UK small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs) have begun to use AI for work that once depended on manual processes, according to a Google Cloud blog post.

The UK has more than five million small and midsize businesses and enterprises which form much of the structure of the UK economy, and many are now using AI to save time, improve productivity, and change how staff handle data, customer support, design, research, payroll, accounting, and security, among other tasks.

According to research from Enterprise Nation, among UK businesses surveyed that had adopted AI, 71% said the technology helped them save time on routine tasks, while 64% reported a gain in productivity. AI-enabled productivity tools such as Gemini can produce a 20% productivity gain for small and midsize businesses, which the company equates to one working day each week on average

Google is positioning AI adoption among smaller businesses as a tool for removing routine work from teams with limited time and staff – the definition of the small business sector.

The company says use of Google Cloud AI by UK-based SMBs has nearly doubled in the last year, a growth linked to increased use of Gemini models and associated products: Gemini Enterprise and AI Studio, for example. Such tools are used, among other operational areas, to improve customer support systems, automate payroll and accounting tasks, make data simpler for non-technical staff to access, create designs for time-stretched marketers, build AI agents to undertake trivial tasks, and support research work that would otherwise have consumed more time or money.

Customers set the example

Neural Alpha, a sustainability fintech company, uses Gemini models to read environmental and corporate sustainability reports, identifying and organising data from unstructured documents, thus streamlining research work that Google says could otherwise take months to achieve.

Sep 2, a digital security provider, uses Gemini Enterprise to deploy AI agents for threat monitoring – an area of specialisation that hit the headlines last month with the arrival of Anthropic’s Mythos model. According to Google, however, Sep 2 is now able to detect incidents more quickly and respond to security threats reported by customers. These abilities stem from Gemini Enterprise, rather than the difficult-to-access Mythos platform.

In the marketing sector, strategic brand design agency Sunhouse uses Gemini Enterprise to search its archives of design work which it stores on Google Drive. Google says the system helps staff spend less time rifling through files and more time on client work and the all-elusive business growth.

Terrapinn, a B2B events company, uses a suite of products including Gemini models, NotebookLM, Looker, and BigQuery to automate manual workflows undertaken by staff – and it’s changing the ways that teams design, market, and deliver conferences for their clients.

The examples cover a wide range of uses, but they share a pattern of operational work that’s now successfully changed thanks to AI under the Gemini umbrella. The applications in common include document review, file retrieval, data analysis, monitoring, workflow automation, and support processes, where in each case, AI is a tool for reducing manual effort and helping staff use information that’s held in different, now-conjoined business systems.

Training and increased adoption

To help SMBs, Google offers an SMB Learning Path, the Gemini Enterprise Agent Ready programme, Google Skills for Organizations, and technical certification support. There are more than 3,000 AI courses and labs created by staffers from Google Cloud and Google DeepMind. With many small- and mid-size firms lacking dedicated AI teams, adoption depends on more than access to models alone. The issue is whether staff can use the tools in ordinary work. Google presents AI skills as part of the same adoption process as software deployment as companies have come to know it since the turn of the millennium.

Google says its AI products are saving time for UK adopters, improving productivity, and helping smaller firms automate work. The case for AI among UK SMBs is one of practicality: AI adoption is increasingly common, playing a pivotal role in routine business functions. The near-term value lies in time saved and faster access to information, but in the long run, lower dependence on manual processes can only benefit this growing sector.

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