Summary Bullets:

• Research from Verizon Business and opinion from Deutsche Telekom highlight the growing importance and transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the SMB segment.
• The challenge is how to convert this demand into money when SMBs have become the focus of telco growth in enterprise revenues.

AI is for hyperscalers, data centers, large corporates, and geeky consumers. Right? Wrong. Research from Verizon Business has found that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the US are rapidly adopting AI. Verizon’s annual State of Small Business Survey found that the proportion of SMBs using AI has more than doubled in the past year (39% from 14% in 2023, with a further 35% considering using AI), as awareness and accessibility to AI in business applications has grown. The leading sectors adopting AI are largely the entertainment, hospitality, and accommodation verticals, which also tend to dominate much of the SMB market. The main use cases for adoption of AI cover marketing/social media, data analysis, and customer service – which makes sense as this has been largely the early adopter case across most markets to date.

Continue reading “SMBs Are Part of the AI Boom – Show Me the Telco Money?” →