Ninety-one percent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) with artificial intelligence (AI) say it boosts their revenue, according to a new Salesforce survey. The global data, gathered from 3,350 leaders of SMBs, highlights how forward-looking businesses are using AI to drive growth amid the meteoric rise of autonomous AI agents.
Why it matters: This new research follows an August 2024 study published by Slack that found SMBs can lose valuable time to technology inefficiencies, uncovering a need for AI solutions that boost productivity.
One such example is reMarkable, a rapidly-growing Norwegian premium paper tablet scale-up that chose Salesforce’s Agentforce to scale their customer service operations. With Agentforce, reMarkable will be able to handle a soaring volume of customer inquiries, providing a white-glove experience at scale by proactively addressing common questions and seamlessly escalating complex issues to human agents. With humans and agents working together, reMarkable can quickly and cost-effectively scale customer service without compromising quality.
The Salesforce perspective: “AI and agents are reshaping what’s possible across business functions like marketing, sales, service, and commerce,” said Kris Billmaier, EVP, Salesforce. “SMBs adopting AI are seeing significant returns and doubling down on their investments. Their success is creating a blueprint for how small businesses can leverage AI, including Agentforce, a new layer on the Salesforce Platform that enables organizations to build and deploy autonomous AI agents, to drive growth.”
AI investments are a sign of growth
Today, 75% of SMBs are at least experimenting with AI, with growing businesses leading in adoption (83%). This gap appears set to widen — 78% of growing SMBs plan to increase their AI investment next year, versus 55% of their declining peers.
The different approaches reflect broader business priorities: while stagnant and declining SMBs focus primarily on customer acquisition, growing SMBs invest in improving the customer experiences and technology capabilities that drive sustainable growth.
SMB leaders who haven’t adopted AI may have a blind spot about its prevalence: While 80% of those using AI believe the technology is commonly used among their peers, only a third of non-users agree.
“AI is leveling the playing field between SMBs and larger enterprises,” said Billmaier. “Small and medium-sized businesses using AI see real returns across their operations, from improved efficiency to stronger customer relationships. Those who wait too long to invest risk falling behind as early adopters build their advantage.”
SMBs call AI a ‘game-changer’
SMBs with AI have a bright outlook for the technology: 78% say it will be a game-changer for their company. Already, 87% of respondents with AI say it helps them scale operations, while 86% see improved margins. The technology is transforming both customer-facing and operational functions, with top use cases including:
- Marketing campaign optimization
- Content generation
- Automated recommendations for customers
- Natural language search tools
- Automated service chatbots
Service teams are also reducing case resolution times, while sales teams are using AI to automatically draft personalized prospecting emails and recommend next best actions for reps. Meanwhile, marketing teams are increasing conversion rates with AI-based lead scoring, decreasing unsubscribe rates through automated email lists, and more.
How leading SMBs maximize AI success
The research also identifies clear patterns in how successful SMBs approach AI implementation.
Data Foundation First
AI systems are trained on and continuously use data, so data quality directly determines results; inaccurate data can lead to harmful flaws. Seventy-four percent of growing SMBs are increasing data management investments, compared to 47% of declining SMBs.
“Some people don’t really understand how data is going to impact the business in the future,” said Dan Atkinson, COO & Co-Founder of Salesforce SMB customer MedLogiq. “It’s about how this data will be valuable to the company five years down the road. We want to make sure we’re not losing that information.”
Integrated Approach
When systems work together seamlessly, AI can access and act on data across the entire business, from sales and marketing to service and the back office. Compared to SMBs with declining revenue, growing SMBs are twice as likely to have an integrated tech stack (66% vs 32%), dodging the problems of siloed data and inefficiencies common to having many standalone applications.
Security and Trust
Security ranks as the top technology challenge for SMBs, reflecting the growing stakes of managing sensitive business data as SMBs expand their AI capabilities. This shapes their purchase decisions: 81% of SMB leaders say they would spend more on technology from trusted vendors.
The next wave: AI agents
The foundations SMBs are building today — such as data management, integrated systems, security, and trusted partnerships — also position these companies for the next wave of AI: agents that can learn, adapt, and take action across the business.
“When SMBs follow AI best practices, they’re not only optimizing their current technology. They’re also positioning themselves for the emerging era of AI agents, in which agents can execute work by searching for relevant data, analyzing this data to formulate a plan, and then actioning the plan — without human intervention,” said Billmaier. “SMBs that have built strong foundations are perfectly positioned to tap into solutions like Agentforce to augment their staff, scale their workforce, and lower costs.”
