I build websites for a living. But lately the conversations I'm having with clients have shifted. It's less about colour palettes and page layouts, and more about automation, AI tools, and how their competitors are suddenly doing things they couldn't afford to do six months ago.
Most small UK businesses are in one of two camps: they're either ignoring AI completely, or they've had a play with ChatGPT once and written it off as a novelty. Both are making a mistake.
What's Actually Changing
This isn't about AI writing your emails. It's about the cost structure of digital work collapsing.
Things that used to cost thousands, like a chatbot for your site, automated email follow-ups, or a custom booking system, now cost hundreds. Or less. The gap between "we can't afford that" and "we have that" is getting smaller every month.
My Take
The businesses that survive the next five years won't necessarily have the best product or the best service. They'll be the ones who figured out how to do more with less. Faster customer response, better outreach, less time spent on admin.
AI is the lever. But someone has to pull it.
What I'm Watching
A few things I'm genuinely excited about right now:
Local AI models. Running AI on your own hardware, no data leaving your building. This is a big deal for any business with client privacy concerns, from legal to healthcare to finance.
Voice AI for trades. Imagine a plumber or electrician who answers enquiries at 11pm without lifting a phone. That's not far off, and the businesses that get there first will hoover up the late-night Google searches.
Personalised outreach at scale. Not spam, but messages that actually feel like they were written for the person reading them. The difference between a 2% and 15% response rate on cold outreach is usually just relevance.
The Bottom Line
If you're a small business owner, don't wait for AI to "mature". It's already mature enough to save you hours every week and win you work you'd otherwise lose. The question is whether you're the one using it, or your competitor is.
Drop me a message if you want to talk about what this could look like for your business.