Technology
Predictions for Small Business and AI in 2025

Last year I predicted that 2024 would be the year when small business case studies would define AI’s path forward as an invaluable support tool. The technology didn’t disappoint, and small businesses of all stripes benefited from revenue forecasting, improved grammar suggestions, automated inventory management, and more.
Now, looking ahead to 2025, I expect AI to delve into more mission-critical tasks, such as data privacy and security, and provide a foundation from which small businesses can scale while smoothing out any bumps in the road.
Here’s more about where the industry is headed in 2025 and how AI will meet these new challenges:
Increased data privacy and security risks are combined with new AI-based solutions
It’s scary to think how much easier, faster and better scams have become in the past year. Generative AI has enabled malicious actors to devise and execute convincing, personalized phishing attacks with little effort and at scale. Likewise, a clever scammer, using advanced AI and ML tools, can create deep fakes of innocent people whose only crime was posting a handful of personal photos and 30 seconds of their voice online. These deep fakes can then be used to defraud friends, family or even employers of money or sensitive information.
The coming years will see a proliferation of privacy and security tools, infused with AI capabilities to ensure better protection against attacks. These solutions, whether new apps from challengers or enhanced solutions from legacy vendors, will leverage AI advancements in computing power, language modeling, and threat/anomaly detection to automatically identify and detect malicious cyber attacks and phishing schemes. thwart.
While these solutions may seem aimed at large enterprises, SMBs remain a weak target for malicious actors whose successful attacks endanger not only the company and its employees, but all customers as well. By installing the right protections, small businesses can rest assured that they are on a growth path without too many unwanted detours.
AI-infused BI for personalized data recommendations and deeper insights
Historically, small and medium-sized businesses have relied on broad analytical tools to gather relatively simple insights into their operations. As companies enter the AI era, advances in technology, growing adoption, and expanding use cases have democratized access to a highly powerful analytics tool for even the smallest organizations.
As vendors compete to integrate their Business Intelligence solutions with the latest AI functionality, SMBs stand to gain big. Expect to see more affordable BI solutions enter the market that, through deep integrations with AI, enable greater personalization, better data and insights, simpler user interfaces, more automation and, most importantly, actionable recommendations, summaries and generative solutions based on datasets of any kind. mate.
These improvements also don’t require additional apps or an expensive technology overhaul. As with more routine functionality, you can expect robust BI capabilities like table stakes to be baked into the standard software, saving small businesses a lot of headaches.
AI will give SMBs exponentially more time to think big
In the short term, AI is poised to alleviate 10% of the repetitive, redundant tasks of every department and role – and do that job ten times better.
But it won’t end there. By 2025, small business owners and founders, who are often caught up in busy work across departments and roles – sometimes all of them – will be able to make efficiency gains across multiple responsibilities, making them exponentially more productive than, say, an accountant or corporate salesperson . a large organization. This leaves small businesses more time to develop strategies around growth, innovation and market penetration – all forward-thinking, revenue-generating areas where AI can now also help.
Think of the potential time saved on manual data entry now available for assessing and pursuing growth opportunities (new markets to enter, product diversification, pricing models, etc.) suggested by AI based on accurate and comprehensive data generated analyzed in a BI system. As this sequence repeats, a company’s AI will learn from real-time results and begin to refine its suggestions toward an organic growth model tailored to each SMB.
AI is experiencing some growing pains
Despite some exciting developments, AI in 2025 is not without potential dangers. Biases remain a problem in training LLMs, especially when it comes to regional and cultural specificities. While privacy and security risks can be mitigated by AI, there’s no telling how low some bad actors might sink and what new methods they might derive from it. Furthermore, legislation governing the use of AI is still in its early stages in most of the world – as if some countries are too scared to put something on paper that could become obsolete almost immediately.
But if 2024 was the year AI earned a seat at the small business table, 2025 will also be the year AI does the cooking and washing up as small business owners plan the next menu.
Please rewrite this statement.
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