Why It Matters Now
Over the past year, AI (Artificial Intelligence) has exploded online. You’ve probably experienced it yourself as a user: using ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity or Gemini to ask questions and do some research. Many people all over the world are doing this too.
Things move fast online, and LLMs (Large Language Models) have simply accelerated it. That means that if you aren’t at least using them to understand why your potential customers/clients are using them, then you might just be left behind because one of your competitors probably is.
Here are some stats to back up why you should be paying attention:
- The ONS (Office for National Statistics) completed a study in 2023, highlighting that 9% of companies were using AI and 22% were planning to adopt it in 2024; Any recent 2025 data? Adoption in some sectors is up to 49% (source): that’s a big rise and apparently the UK is leading Europe in AI adoption.
- The UK’s AI sector was measured to be worth around £80 billion in 2024 (source), which is around the size of the management consultancy industry in the UK.
- Microsoft announced investment in UK AI projects of $30 billion from 2025 to 2028 (source)
All this shows that if a sector grows significantly, it can become an industry, and, like the internet boom of the 1990s, many businesses may be left behind. However, because the AI industry seems to be moving at an exponential rate, detailed academic-style research may lag behind, as highlighted in this journal article.
The Competitive Advantage
If your competitors are considering adopting or currently using AI, then they may be more effective than you by having the following advantages.
Speed Advantage
When a competitor uses AI, they will be able to do things much faster. Perhaps that involves creating different landing pages for split testing, crafting copy for email marketing (which we would advise against), analysing data to achieve a better return on ad spend, or optimising their ads more quickly based on the learned metrics from the AI system.
Bottom line: AI helps speed up workflow and GSD.
Cost Advantage
Testing out different landing pages, completing admin tasks, and sorting through, merging, and analysing data are all tasks that people in the past would do. AI can handle all of these simple tasks with ease. That means lower costs and higher profits, but you know what else? The psychological effect of continuing to use it in business is that the metrics are saying it’s ok.
Relevance Advantage
AI agents have been all the rage in 2024 and 2025 in geek circles. They can do lots of different tasks, from responding in a chatbox on your website to replying to standard email enquiries or customers’ support tickets. This offers some good touchpoints for the customer, as they feel treated like an individual.
What surprised me earlier in 2025 was when I listened in on an AI cold calling a business (all part of research, and the recipients agreed for their data to be observed): it was surreal, personable, and quite similar to a human. I find that most sales calls feel robotic anyway, but when I listened in on a few, I was blown away by how the AI understood the human as a person and could anticipate their objections and needs (as it had been programmed to do). Trends look like this will continue in the future (source).
The crazy part? Most people didn’t even realise they were talking to an AI. Wow. I guess we won’t be outsourcing to that popular Commonwealth country for call centres in the future.
How Your Competitors Will Steal Market Share
If your competitors are using AI, then they’re going to be able to move faster with lots of different tasks, such as:
Search and Content
Creating and optimising pages for SEO? AI can help a bunch with that. Now, personally, I don’t like AI-created content. It’s too correct, too formal, and the language the models use can come across as disconcerting and non-human: a bit like a wonky bike wheel: the bike still goes, but it just looks… plain… weird.
Scanning the written content for typos or grammatical mistakes? Yes. Scanning to double-check that the content has everything that it should? Yes, absolutely. AI can be great at summarising what points you’ve missed on a landing page, in an article, or in an FAQ section.
AI can also help with content briefs that are given to an agency or a copywriter. And it can be a huge help in sorting through keyword data and what to target.
Ads (PPC)
AI can speed things up with advertising like variants, A/B split testing, and audience matching.
In short, it speeds up many things that would have to be done manually. Need a few days to a week to launch your ads and A/B split testing of landing pages? AI can do it all in an afternoon with a skilled prompter.
Email & CRM
When you want to sort through the data of your customers/clients (or even potential ones that are on your prospects list), AI can make things so much easier and quicker. Segmenting people into specific lists or funnels, or analysing them all and giving detailed information on what you should do.
Testing subject lines for emails has been a big thing for me with AI models. Sometimes they can read the emails, and the suggestions they provide are sometimes great subject lines to use in your emails. And, after all, the subject line is key for an email to be opened by a recipient, so if your competitors’ marketing emails are being opened more than yours, then that’s surely going to help them convert people and grow faster.
Administrative Tasks
AI is great at providing a transcript of a call and then summarising it. Some AIs are also great at taking a bunch of data and summarising it, creating charts and graphs, and even a report. Although your standard ChatGPT account will say it can do this, I’ve found it to be lacking. A bit more spending per month and using a different model can achieve this. If a competitor is doing this, could they then better understand their own business metrics and make moves more quickly?
AIs can also help clean out your CRM, so that the data you hold on customers and prospects is clear, detailed and accurate. And, if you’re creating proposals or presentations for your business, then AI can help. A surefire way for your competitor to streamline their processes and gain a competitive advantage over you.
Then you’ve also got some AI models that create websites, apps, and other digital products. They’re definitely fun to play with, but as with everything AI it all depends on the information (prompt) you provide it.
If You Want To Beat The Competition
If you’re serious about integrating AI into your business and using it to help you grow (and not get left behind), then there are a few steps you can take.
Book a Power Hour
Head over to the power hour page here and book one hour with me (Nick). We can discuss your business, where you’re currently at, and how AI can help you achieve your business goals. And, don’t worry, if you’re a solopreneur or single business owner who contracts work out sometimes, then AI can definitely help you.
Set Aside a Budget
Let’s say you’re going to integrate AI into your business. Well, you’ll need a budget. Nothing too spectacular, £50 to £200 per month for the next six months. You can decide which part of your business and operations you want AI to help you with, but you really don’t need to spend much more than this.
Let AI Complement Your Current Set-up
If you already have a CRM, an email marketing system, are using online ads, or are currently using landing pages, then use AI platforms to complete tasks much quicker.
Risks to be Aware of
If you choose to implement AI in lots of different parts of your business, you need to keep a few things in mind.
Customer/Client Trust
You should be transparent. People are okay with talking to an AI as long as they know it is. Some larger organisations use AI as chatbots on websites to talk with users and help them get answers to questions.
However, it’s essential to maintain human contact in customer communications to foster trust in your brand and connect on a personal level.
Data Protection
Obviously, since GDPR and DPA 2018, you need to be aware of data protection for your client base. No copying and pasting customer information into ChatGPT, for example. Especially since some data were mistakenly indexed by Google recently (which means it was publicly available), having client information in there could be hugely damaging.
Also, if you’re using an AI agent for anything, ensure the settings are private if they’re interacting with customers.
Quality Control
Ensure that humans in your business are monitoring the interactions and processes that AI is performing for you. No matter the tasks AI is completing for you, a human should check its work every so often. You don’t want to find out months later that the data you’ve been using to make decisions has been incorrect from the start because AI assumed something that wasn’t accurate.
Skills Gap
There is definitely a skills gap when it comes to businesses and AI. Large organisations are usually first movers and will help shape what is to come, but it’s worth thinking now and planning the implementation and adoption of AI to help you grow your business. There’s some funding available in the UK to help with this, and as the UK looks to be leading the rush towards AI adoption in Europe, I’d expect this to increase over the next year or so.
Closing Thoughts
It’s definitely worth thinking about integrating AI into your business activities, even if it’s to take some of the mundane data tasks off your plate and give you back time to concentrate on something more strategic.
If you’re serious about embracing AI, one of the best ways to approach this is to sign up for the retained digital adviser service. On-hand advice and guidance to help you plan and implement AI into your business.
