AI for small businesses: where to start
Two thirds of large companies use AI, fewer than one in seven micro businesses do. The difference is rarely money. It is knowing where to start.
What holds small businesses back
Statistics Netherlands asked micro businesses that considered AI but did not start why not. Multiple answers were possible.
| Lack of experience | 71.6% |
| Privacy concerns | 48.8% |
| Hard to obtain | 37.6% |
| Not compatible with existing systems | 32.2% |
| Too expensive | 20.3% |
Money only comes fifth. The biggest barrier is experience, and you cannot buy that with a subscription. Research commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs found the same: small businesses lack time, resources and knowledge, and therefore depend on outside help.
Where AI saves hours in a small business
Not everything suits it. This is work with a lot of repetition, a clear outcome and a person who can check.
Phone and customer questions
The same questions, every day. In measured customer service work, AI assistance resolved 14 percent more conversations per hour, and 34 percent for new agents.
Reading documents and transferring data
Reading invoices, forms and emails and putting them into the right system. Work with a clear right or wrong, and therefore easy to check.
First drafts of text
Quotes, emails and reports. In an experiment, writing tasks took 40 percent less time with AI. The final version stays yours.
Well-defined software
Integrations, scripts and small components. On a well-defined assignment, developers worked 55.8 percent faster. In large existing projects that gain does not come automatically.
How to start without turning your business upside down
- 1. Pick a task that comes back often and that nobody likes doing.
- 2. Measure for a week how much time it takes now.
- 3. Let AI prepare the work, with someone checking every result.
- 4. Measure again. If it saves nothing, stop.
- 5. If it does, let go of the checking step by step and take the next task.
That is also what the researchers for the ministry recommend: experiment small, and move one step further each time.
What AI will not solve for you
- Work outside what AI can do. There it makes mistakes that sound convincing.
- A process that is already messy. AI makes a messy process faster, not better.
- Privacy. Customer data does not belong in a public chatbot. For that, AI runs in your own environment.
Sources
Where every figure on this page comes from.
- CBS: gebruik van AI-technologie naar bedrijfsgrootte · 66,2, 29,8 en 13,8 procent in 2025 (2026)
- CBS: redenen om geen AI-technologie te gebruiken · Microbedrijven die AI overwogen, 2025 (2026)
- Dialogic voor het ministerie van EZ: AI-gebruik in het mkb · Ambitie of aarzeling, september 2025
- Brynjolfsson, Li en Raymond: Generative AI at Work · NBER working paper 31161, 2023
- Noy en Zhang: productiviteitseffecten van generatieve AI · Science 381, 2023
- Peng e.a.: GitHub Copilot en de snelheid van programmeren · arXiv 2302.06590, 2023
- METR: AI-tools bij ervaren open-source-ontwikkelaars · arXiv 2507.09089, 2025
Our approach
From advice to management, with one partner
The same rhythm for every project.
Advice
We start with a conversation, not with code. First clarity on what you need and what you do not.
Build
We build and integrate to measure, with technology that fits you. You own your data and your code.
Manage
We stay involved: monitoring, adjusting and growing with your business.
Which task would you hand over first?
Tell us, and we will look together at whether and how it can be measured.
Call 085 083 5775A 30-minute intake