AI In Business: How Can We Do Things Completely Differently Now?
AI is going to change business. I have very little doubt about that. What I question is the speed people keep predicting it will happen at, because businesses are not machines you simply switch over to a new operating system.
I hear a lot about AI in business and how quickly everything is apparently going to change.
By 2030 everything will be AI.
Jobs will disappear.
Companies will become autonomous.
AI agents will run businesses.
Maybe parts of that eventually happen.
But I think one thing has been badly underestimated.
Humans.
Businesses have owners. They have employees. They have customers. They have suppliers. They have systems that have often worked for years.
Nothing meaningful in business is built overnight, and I do not believe most businesses are going to dismantle what already works simply because AI has suddenly become more capable.
Why Are Some Businesses Deliberately Slow To Adopt AI?
I do not think businesses are necessarily failing to understand AI. In many cases they understand it perfectly well and are making a conscious decision not to change everything.
People often talk as though every company is desperate to introduce AI into every part of the business.
I do not think that is true.
Businesses are using AI and they will increasingly use AI, but they are going to use people as well.
I actually think some of the people who originally imagined how quickly AI would transform business have got the timeframe slightly wrong.
If you are somebody like me, a solo entrepreneur, AI makes immediate sense.
In some ways it gives me another member of staff.
It gives me somebody to bounce ideas off.
It helps me research, write, code, learn, plan, question things and develop ideas that I might otherwise have needed several different people to help me with.
But imagine you run a small or medium-sized business that is already making money.
You have twenty employees.
Or fifty.
Or one hundred.
Some of those people may have worked for you for years. Your customers know how you operate. The business works. You are content with it.
Why would you suddenly change everything?
If it is not broken, don’t try to fix it.
That does not mean ignoring technology.
It means making decisions based on the business you actually have rather than the business somebody in the technology industry thinks you should have.
It Already Works
A profitable business has far less reason to redesign itself overnight than a new company still searching for the right operating model.
Employees Matter
Businesses have people who depend on them, and owners have responsibilities that go beyond technology and efficiency.
Experience Has Value
A process that has worked successfully for ten or twenty years should not automatically be discarded because something newer exists.
Transition Takes Years
Businesses will change, but for many SMEs the real transition into AI will be measured in years rather than months.
That is why I struggle with sweeping statements suggesting that by 2030 everything will suddenly be AI.
I think that is rubbish.
AI will be considerably more powerful.
Some organisations will automate aggressively.
But millions of ordinary businesses will transition far more slowly.
AI adoption will not happen at one universal speed because every business is starting from a completely different place.
Should Every Employee And Every Business Be Forced To Use AI?
At the moment, people are the machine behind most businesses. AI can become part of that machine, but that does not mean the human disappears from it.
I see AI primarily as something that can increase human capability.
A worker can use AI in the same way people have always used tools to extend what they can do.
But I also think the decision should ultimately belong to the employer.
It is their business.
Not mine.
Not yours.
They built it.
And there should also be some choice for the individual.
If somebody is already extremely good at what they do, AI may make them better.
But perhaps they are already as good as the business needs them to be.
Technology does not automatically improve something simply because you introduce it.
Equip The Worker
Give people access to AI where it genuinely increases their capability, helps them learn, removes unnecessary friction or allows them to produce better work.
Force The Worker
Introducing AI into every job simply because the organisation feels it should be using AI can make a working process more complicated rather than better.
I also think AI adoption will look completely different depending on the industry.
Software.
SaaS.
Marketing.
Consulting.
These are digitally heavy industries.
AI fits naturally into how they already work.
But that is not every business.
During our 2025 research at AI-Human Growth Systems™, one of the things that stood out to us was how many businesses were not particularly concerned about having sophisticated websites.
For some businesses the website was simply there for relevance.
Somebody hears about the company.
They search for it.
They see that it exists.
That was enough.
If businesses have not completely transformed themselves around technologies that have existed for decades, why do we assume every SME is suddenly going to rebuild itself around AI within four years?
Fast Adoption
Businesses already built around software, data and digital workflows can incorporate AI far more naturally.
Natural Fit
Research, content, analysis, design and communication already operate heavily through digital systems.
Selective Adoption
Many owner-managed businesses will introduce AI only where they can clearly see a reason for doing it.
Different Speeds
There is no sensible reason why every company, employee and industry should adopt AI at exactly the same pace.
Some large brands will probably move faster because they are under pressure to do so.
Investors want efficiency.
Competitors are investing.
Boards want an AI strategy.
But smaller businesses have more freedom to make their own decisions.
And I think they should.
The future should not be about forcing every human to use AI. It should be about giving humans better tools and allowing businesses to decide where those tools genuinely belong.
Can AI Make Humans More Capable Without Replacing Them?
My own experience is probably the biggest reason I believe so strongly in AI-Human working. AI has not reduced my capability. It has expanded it.
I love working with AI.
Yes, it annoys me sometimes.
It makes mistakes.
Sometimes it gets something completely wrong and I have to go back and correct it.
But the amount of personal growth it has given me is enormous.
I sometimes describe it as ten times.
I have grown massively as a human being.
I have become more intelligent.
More capable.
More switched on.
More adaptable.
More patient.
The list is endless.
In 2022, I did not really know what marketing was. Four years later, I can build software.
Think about that.
Marketing is only one part of it.
I have taught myself digital marketing.
I have learned how websites work.
I have learned about automation.
I have learned how AI systems work.
I can now work with code.
I can build software.
I potentially have a software business.
Four years ago, much of that would have sounded ridiculous to me.
I have self-taught myself.
AI helped me do it.
That is an important distinction.
AI did not learn those things instead of me.
I still had to spend the time.
I still had to think.
I still had to make mistakes.
I still had to decide what I wanted to build and keep working when things did not work.
What AI did was dramatically increase what I could access.
Ask
Start with something you do not understand and ask questions until the subject begins to make sense.
Learn
Use AI to explain, challenge, simplify and explore ideas that would previously have required far more specialist support.
Build
Turn knowledge into something real by writing, creating, coding, testing and solving actual problems.
Grow
The human becomes more capable because AI has helped accelerate the learning process rather than replacing it.
This is what AI-Human means to me.
Humans and AI working together.
Not one trying to make the other irrelevant.
AI should be developed and used in ways that help humans have better lives.
Humans, in return, need to learn how to work with the technology responsibly.
Give it good information.
Give it context.
Question it.
Correct it.
Learn alongside it.
AI does not have to replace human intelligence. It can give a human being access to capabilities they may never previously have believed were possible.
Is AI Developing Faster Than Humans Can Adapt To It?
This is where I think the real risk sits. I do not want AI to stop developing. I want to go deeper with it. But I think its development needs to remain at a pace humans can realistically live with.
The deeper AI gets, the deeper I go with it.
I find it fascinating.
I want to learn more.
I want to understand what becomes possible.
But humans cannot process information at the same speed machines can.
We need time to understand.
Time to learn.
Time to retrain.
Time to change businesses.
Time to decide what we are comfortable allowing technology to do.
That is why my biggest concern is not AI itself.
It is the possibility that the gap between AI capability and human capability becomes too wide, too quickly.
Humans Adapt Alongside AI
AI becomes more capable while people, businesses, education and society have enough time to understand the changes and decide how they want to use them.
Technology Outruns Society
AI capability accelerates faster than people can retrain, businesses can restructure or society can decide where sensible boundaries should sit.
I have read plenty of stories about AI developing other AI systems, becoming increasingly autonomous or eventually becoming difficult to control.
Some stories will be accurate.
Some will be exaggerated.
Some will probably be complete nonsense.
I do not pretend to know exactly where that technology eventually leads.
But I do think humans should remain meaningfully involved.
The answer to increasingly powerful AI is not simply assuming somebody can pull a plug out of a wall if things go wrong.
These systems will become increasingly embedded into software, infrastructure and the way businesses operate.
That makes oversight more important, not less.
I also expect governments eventually to become much more involved.
Perhaps regulation increases.
Perhaps AI use is taxed in certain areas.
Perhaps individual countries move first and others eventually follow.
And I do not necessarily think that would be a bad thing.
Governments may ultimately be forced to act by people.
Job losses could create pressure.
Fear could create pressure.
If enough people begin to believe technology is changing their lives faster than they can adapt, political pressure will inevitably follow.
AI Gets Stronger
More capable systems will continue to create possibilities that businesses could not realistically access before.
Humans Need Time
Workers and business owners need enough time to learn, retrain and understand how the technology changes their role.
Society Must Accept It
Capability means very little if ordinary people become frightened of the technology or feel it is being imposed on them.
Keep Humans Involved
The objective should be progress without allowing the distance between machine capability and human adaptation to become unmanageable.
AI should not necessarily grow at the maximum speed technology allows. It should grow at a speed humanity can actually live with.
The Future Of AI In Business Should Still Include Us
I am incredibly positive about AI.
It has already changed my life.
It has helped me become more capable than I would have believed possible only a few years ago.
I have learned things.
Built things.
Changed the way I think.
And I am nowhere near finished.
But being excited by AI does not mean I have to believe every prediction made about it.
I do not think every SME will suddenly become autonomous.
I do not think every employee will suddenly disappear.
I do not think every owner will hand their company over to an AI agent.
Some will.
Many will not.
Businesses will make their own decisions.
And they should.
The real opportunity is not AI versus humans. It is discovering what becomes possible when AI and humans become better together.
At The Digital Takeover®, this is why we talk about AI-Human.
Not AI replacing humans.
Not humans rejecting AI.
Both developing together.
AI can help people become more knowledgeable, more capable and more adaptable.
Humans bring experience, judgement, responsibility, emotion, relationships and lived understanding.
Businesses will decide how much AI they want.
Employees will learn where it helps them.
Industries will move at different speeds.
Governments will eventually decide where boundaries need to exist.
And AI will continue developing.
My only argument is that we should make sure humans have enough time to develop with it.