AI for Small Business: Where to Start in 2026

By now, you've heard the hype. AI will revolutionize everything. AI will steal your job. AI will solve your business problems. AI AI AI.

Most of it is noise. Here's what's actually useful for a small business in 2026.

Three AI Use Cases That Actually Work

1. Customer Support Automation

Your customers ask the same questions over and over. "What are your hours?" "Can I return this?" "Do you ship to [country]?"

An AI chatbot handles 70% of these. Your team handles the complex 30%. Everyone's happier. You're probably saving €500-€2000/month in salaries.

Cost: €1,000-€3,000 to set up. Basically free to run.

2. Content Generation

Blog posts, social media captions, product descriptions, email campaigns. Your marketing needs content. You don't have time to write it. AI does.

A human reviews it. 5 minutes per piece. But the writing is already 80% done.

Cost: €30/month subscription + a few hours of your time.

3. Process Automation

You manually copy data from email into a spreadsheet. You manually send invoices. You manually sort leads by qualification.

All of that can be automated. AI reads the email, extracts the data, populates the spreadsheet, sends the follow-up.

If your team wastes 5 hours/week on manual tasks, this pays for itself immediately.

Cost: €800-€2,000 to set up. €0 to run.

What AI Can't Do (Yet)

AI is bad at strategy. It's bad at creativity. It's bad at understanding your business deeply.

So don't ask it to "grow my business" or "increase revenue." Ask it to "write product descriptions" or "sort customer inquiries by urgency."

Specific tasks. Not big-picture strategy.

The Real Cost of AI

People think AI is expensive. It's not.

A ChatGPT subscription is €20/month. A custom AI integration is €1,000-€5,000. An AI workflow automation is €800-€2,000.

For a small business that saves 5 hours/week, that ROI is obvious.

The actual cost is thinking time. You have to think about what processes are worth automating. You have to manage the AI implementation. You have to monitor the results.

How to Evaluate if AI Makes Sense for Your Business

Ask yourself these questions:

Do my team members spend time on repetitive tasks?
Do my customers ask the same questions repeatedly?
Do I need content but don't have time to produce it?
Is there a process that happens the same way every time?
If this was automated, would it free up 5+ hours per week?

If you answered yes to any of these, AI is worth exploring.

Where to Start

Start small. Pick one task. Solve it with AI. Measure the impact. Expand from there.

If you're unsure, talk to someone who knows AI and your business. A good AI consultant will say "this is worth doing" or "this isn't a priority." They'll save you from making expensive mistakes.

A one-hour consultation usually costs €60-€100. It can save you €5,000 in bad decisions.

The Bottom Line

AI isn't magic. It's a tool. Like any tool, it's useful in specific situations.

In 2026, the question isn't "should I use AI?" It's "which repetitive task should I automate first?"

Start there.