Wider AI adoption could add £43Bn to small business revenues, new modelling finds

A new Social Market Foundation report says wider AI use could add between £38.1bn and £47.3bn to small and medium-sized businesses across Great Britain. Its central estimate is £42.6bn, assuming the firms that say they plan to adopt AI actually do so. The research was sponsored by Intuit and combines a survey of 1,015 SME leaders with official local economy data from the ONS.

The biggest cash gain lands in London, where the model puts the central uplift at about £10bn. The South East follows at £6.3bn, while the East of England and North West are both at £4.3bn. But if the question is which regions gain most relative to the size of their economies, the Midlands and the East of England come out ahead. The East Midlands, East of England and West Midlands are all around 0.67% to 0.72%.

The firms already using AI in the survey reported an average revenue lift of 2.8%. Later adopters are expected to see less, about 2.3%, which suggests the easy wins are already being taken. The most common benefits were time savings, cited by 88%, and quality improvements, cited by 79%.

The report also shows the kind of AI matters. Advanced users reported stronger results than basic users, and specialist tools were slightly more strongly linked to positive outcomes than general chatbot-style systems. Surveyed senior leaders were 1.8 times more likely to report headcount growth, but most AI-using businesses, 63%, said staffing stayed flat.

SMF says money alone won’t solve the adoption problem. It points to worries about data security, reliability, and skills, and wants government to back awareness campaigns, a tiered Help to Grow: AI scheme, better product assurance, stronger data foundations, and monitoring of job effects so support pushes augmentation rather than replacement.