Are Irish SMEs Ready for AI? Insights from the Ground

The conversation about AI and small business has moved on. It is no longer about whether Irish SMEs should pay attention, but about the level of AI adoption in Irish SMEs. Of course, many are already using these tools day to day. The more interesting question now is what is actually happening, and what is getting in the way.

I spoke with four people who work directly with small businesses on digital adoption and AI: John O'Shanahan of Lean BPI, digital strategist and lecturer Aisling Hurley of TBF.ie, Eoin Costello of the Dargan Institute in Dun Laoghaire, and Sandra Reynolds, programme manager for digital supports at LEO Dublin City.

AI Adoption, Most SMEs Are Using AI, But

John O'Shanahan sees AI being used across many of the small businesses he works with.

"People that are digital are generally using AI to some level. Most of them are using it to rewrite emails, rewrite documents and give me ideas."

He compares it to how businesses use Excel. Most people use a fraction of what is possible, not because the tools are hard to access, but because the foundations underneath them are not ready.

"To get advantage out of AI, you should really be putting your Digital in from the foundations. If you have good data in your business, you can use AI to analyse it. But if the data isn't structured, AI can't do anything with that."

The Right Sequence Matters

The order of things is important: understand your processes first, digitise properly, then bring AI in. Otherwise, as O'Shanahan puts it, you are digitising inefficiency.

When businesses get the sequence right, the results can be significant. He points to "Profix, a Cork-based construction services firm, where careful digital improvement over a decade brought quotation turnaround from three days to ten hours, then to three hours. With their AI now integrated into the process, it takes around 1.5 hours with further reductions possible as their AI model is optimised." A quotation process that once consumed days of skilled staff time now runs in hours, freeing capacity that feeds directly back into the business.

"Everyone agrees the best AI output is AI plus human. The human part needs to have domain knowledge."

That point about domain knowledge is central to everything O'Shanahan says. Your expertise in your own field, he argues, will matter as much as your knowledge of the AI tool itself.

The Strategic and Ethical Gaps

Aisling Hurley works with rural SMEs and teaches digital strategy. She sees businesses picking up AI tools without thinking carefully about what they are taking on.

"Leadership needs to set guardrails. AI is not just another productivity tool. It changes how value is created."

Many firms are experimenting with Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT without a clear approach to governance, data security or longer-term strategy. For Hurley, the ethics of AI adoption are not an afterthought. They are part of the conversation from the start.

"There's a difference between attending an AI workshop and embedding AI strategically in a business."

Rural SMEs Face Additional Pressures

In rural areas, the challenge is compounded. Connectivity constraints, limited access to local expertise and thinner professional networks create barriers that urban businesses do not face to the same degree.

Hurley also raises the question of digital sovereignty, and it is worth taking seriously. European businesses, including Irish SMEs, are increasingly dependent on AI tools and cloud platforms owned and operated in the United States. That dependency has a political dimension that is becoming harder to ignore. The current US administration has already shown it is willing to cut off digital services to individuals on political grounds. For businesses that have built workflows and operations around these platforms, the question of what happens if access is restricted or withdrawn is one that very few have thought through.

Pace of Change Is Underestimated

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