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Benefits of AI for business

ended 05. September 2025

We're writing an article on the benefits that AI can offer businesses in terms of automating key tasks, streamlining existing processes and, in theory, boosting their profitability. Equally, what can the negatives be? Can AI be risky for businesses in some areas if they turn their back and become over-reliant on it?  We're looking for comments from business owners deploying AI and experts in the sector. Examples (anonymised fine) of good and bad AI especially welcome.

6 responses from the Newspage community

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Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
The dirty secret of the AI revolution? Most of it doesn't work. AI in the right hands is a great tool offering clear benefits, especially when dealing with repetitive, rule-based tasks and processing vast datasets to identify patterns humans might miss. This can deliver immediate ROI through reduced labour costs and faster processing times. However, it requires careful and consistent management. Recent research by MIT reveals a sobering statistic: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing. Despite the hype, successful AI implementation is far more challenging than many businesses anticipate. For businesses, the message should be clear: AI offers genuine opportunities, but success requires careful planning, realistic expectations, and strong governance. The companies succeeding are those treating AI as a tool to augment human capabilities rather than replace them entirely.
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Philly Ponniah
Chartered Wealth Manager and Financial Coach at Philly Financial
I use AI daily, with agents set up for specific roles and refined with ongoing feedback. They handle call transcripts, draft proposals, and even act like a business strategist by analysing revenue streams and suggesting improvements. I never rely on it for finished products, but getting me 70% there saves about 15 hours a week and removes the need for an assistant. The upside is speed, efficiency, and spotting trends I might otherwise miss. The danger is blind trust. I see each agent as an intern that needs training, not a decision-maker. Critical thinking is still essential if you want good outcomes.
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Oli Garnett
Co-Founder at Something Familiar.
AI is the intern every business secretly wanted... works 24/7, never takes holiday, and doesn’t complain about the coffee. Used well, it takes the grind out of tasks and frees humans up to actually think. But like any intern, leave it unsupervised and you’ll come back to chaos. We’ve seen firms blindly roll out AI and end up with copy-and-paste Frankenstein content or data privacy headaches they didn’t budget for. Governance isn’t the boring bit, it’s the seatbelt. At our agency we’re building a playbook and manifesto so AI makes us sharper without making us reckless. The funny thing? The real risk isn’t over-reliance, it’s under-reliance. In five years, the businesses still “waiting to see” will look like they’re running on dial-up in a 5G world.
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Daniel Park
Founder at InTouchNow AI
As a business deploying AI voice technology in NHS GP practices and hospitals, we’ve seen how AI can remove barriers like call wait times completely by answering patients instantly, automating booking and cancellations, and even supporting multi-lingual access so communities who previously struggled to get through can now easily book appointments. For staff, AI streamlines routine admin by completing and submitting triage forms directly into clinical systems, freeing teams to focus on complex cases rather than repetitive tasks. The risk comes when businesses view AI as a ‘set and forget’ solution—without human oversight, errors can slip through and the customer or patient experience suffers. The best outcomes come when AI is used to automate high-volume processes while humans remain in the loop to provide judgment and empathy.
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Sandra Vollrath-Evans
Marketing Operations Consultant at MOPS22
AI can strip out the busywork in marketing and content creation for businesses of all sizes, giving teams more space for strategy and creativity. But the danger is letting it replace common sense. Without governance and clear processes, AI magnifies existing flaws, often at speed. Think about the volume of videos, images, and text-based content created today. Once you count every social post, ad version, video clip, and localisation, output can run into the hundreds or even thousands of assets a day for global brands. Without strong processes and governance, AI just multiplies the chaos. The businesses that see real value are the ones that get the foundations right: clean data, clear processes, and defined responsibilities.
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Lorraine Allman
Founder at Lorraine Allman
We introduced AI to help our customers plan sustainable celebrations. The first AI tool of its kind in the UK, it helps with sustainable party planning, sourcing sustainable party products, and a sustainable party theme generator. We faced 2 challenges - AI has a high carbon footprint, so we had to justify adopting a tool like this. We focused on using technology for good by amplifying sustainable choices, shifting behaviours away from plastic party supplies. The benefits outweigh the footprint. The 2nd challenge was risking AI-hallucinated responses. In sustainability, accuracy is everything. A response saying something is eco-friendly when it isn’t is misleading and damaging to our brand. We validated outputs, did stress-test responses to ground the AI in trustworthy, verified resources. We’ve seen really exciting results in our social content with engagement growing by around 200% as a result of better content, and smarter timing - AI has accelerated that learning curve for us.