Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a fundamental part of business practice, and increasingly so for startups and small businesses. As they strive to compete and scale up in a rapidly evolving commercial environment, many are turning to AI agents to boost operational efficiencies, enhance customer experience, and drive growth.
Recent Census Bureau analysis revealed that very small companies with four or fewer employees had the second-highest increase in AI usage since September 2023, only trailing corporations with 250 or more employees. AI adoption by those small businesses rose from 4.6% to 5.8%, while large corporations saw an increase from 5.2% to 7.8% in the same period.
Limited resources, low budgets, and barriers to scaling are some of the biggest challenges facing startups and small businesses, but with an AI agent on board they can reduce their operational costs, optimize resource use, and scale quickly.
An AI agent is a system or program capable of autonomously performing any multi-step task, from accounting and business development to customer care. And according to Alan Paton, CEO of global technology provider Qodea, their impact will be nothing short of transformational.
He says: “An AI agent will provide any startup with instant scale. Suddenly, they can offer global customer support, in any language, that exceeds the standard of their biggest competitors. Customer questions and complaints can be responded to at any time of day and answered in such a sophisticated way that the customer won’t be aware that they’re not talking to a human at all.”
Crucially, AI agents can free up time-poor founders to focus on the areas that are key to growth and where their expertise lies, rather than being bogged down with time-consuming repetitive tasks or areas of the business where they lack expertise.
Unlocking speed and creativity
In the fiercely competitive world of B2B digital marketing, AI is no longer a luxury; it is the foundation of a competitive advantage.
Digital marketing agency Jam7, founded by tech industry veterans Mitchell Feldman and Jason Nash, is transforming the way that B2B tech brands achieve market leadership through the power of an agentic marketing platform (AMP). It allows them to demonstrate to their clients a significant increase in qualified leads, lower acquisition costs and stronger engagement by using AI to get real-time market intelligence, spot trends before they emerge and create hyper-personalization at scale.
CTO Netanel Eliav says: “Many companies still operate with a ‘spray and pray’ approach to marketing, hoping that scattered campaigns will drive results. AMP changes all that by validating and honing strategies through data, so businesses can eliminate wasted effort and ensure every marketing decision is laser-focused, purposeful and ROI-driven.
“Marketing without AI isn’t just slower; it’s weaker. With AMP, businesses are unlocking unprecedented levels of efficiency, speed and creativity. The companies winning today aren’t asking if they should adopt AI; they are already using it.”
Cost effective AI agents
AI agents are affordable for even the smallest business, as many prebuilt solutions are available via a subscription plan, allowing for manageable monthly fees, typically $30 to $500 per month based on features and usage, rather than significant upfront costs.
However, as Paton explains, before investing, it is crucial for a startup to fully understand what’s possible and what’s not possible with an AI agent. “The agent will only be as good as the information it’s fed,” he says. “They should be treated like the smartest seven-year-old you’ve ever met, who, properly taught, will act like a professor. But only if it’s properly taught.”
One way of getting to grips with AI agents is to do some online training, some of which is free, before choosing the right technology partner to help them create the perfect process. “The devil is in the detail,” says Paton, “Businesses must carefully define what they’re trying to do and use the AI agent to become world-class at that.”
Bespoke AI agents
Some founders are developing their own AI agents. Licensing consultancy Onyx aims to help businesses navigate what it describes as the ‘Wild West’ of software licensing and save them huge amounts of money every year by guaranteeing they get the best deal when buying from the likes of Microsoft, SAP and Oracle.
Launched in January this year, founders Chris Brown and Neil Lomax, veterans in the Microsoft licensing channel, drew on their combined 40 years of experience in the industry to develop their own AI agent.
Brown says: “Customers are spending significant sums of money on software and cloud services with Microsoft, and they are finding themselves without the structured discounts and the advisory support they previously relied on from resellers. This change will leave many companies at risk of overpaying or procuring sub-optimal solutions, often without realizing it.”
Onyx was created to address this problem. The founders set out to build an AI-driven solution with two key deliverables; fast, accurate licensing insights and a data-driven, unbiased analysis of their software licensing and cloud costs to validate the commercial viability of their contracts and pricing and identify cost-savings opportunities.
“Developing our AI platform was a journey of trial, error, and refinement,” says Brown. “We had to experiment with different models, understand their strengths and limitations, and ensure that the AI wasn’t just providing quick answers and ‘AI hallucinations’, but correct and contextualized answers. AI alone isn’t enough in a space as nuanced as Microsoft licensing, so we designed Onyx to be backed by human experts, offering a safety net that ensures accuracy and trust.”
AI agents as standard
The project took over six months and a significant investment to develop a solution that met enterprise standards. What started as a team of four rapidly scaled to 14 full-time developers to handle the rising volume of customer queries worldwide.
As artificial intelligence technology continues to advance and become more accessible, it’s not difficult to anticipate a future where AI agents become an integral part of even the smallest organization’s business strategy.
Paton adds: “We are seeing more small businesses embracing AI agents. I believe in time that it will become the standard operating model with everyone using AI for a multitude of simple and complex tasks. We’re only at the very start of the AI revolution, and we’ve just scratched the surface of what is possible.”
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