What AI actually did for real small and mid-sized firms.

Vanda Coatings

Commercial recoating firm, Cardiff

The owner built a custom system, starting with purchase order matching and then costing, scheduling and reporting. It extracts and validates data so staff no longer retype figures between documents, and reports run automatically. Staff test each step and handle edge cases and judgement calls.

Result The team saved five hours of admin a week once the system was running.

Not statedUK

Retail Trust

Retail wellbeing charity working with more than 200 retailers

CGI built a network of AI agents into the charity existing Happiness Dashboard. The agents gather material from guidelines, mental health guides, demographic data and retailer feedback, generate tailored campaign content, validate it separately, capture feedback and log every output for human review.

Result CGI reports that the campaign work now needs 80% less manual effort.

About 127 staffUK

Belong Law

Law firm for founders and startups

The founder built a voice agent that calls inbound leads within minutes of an enquiry, holds a qualification conversation, filters out unqualified prospects and routes the rest to the attorneys, using ElevenLabs voice cloning, Grok, Twilio, Attio and Netlify.

Result The system saves the attorneys four to five hours a day.

Not statedNot stated

Agate CPA

Tax, accounting and wealth firm with offices in Atlanta and Rogers, Arkansas

The partners built a detailed prospect web form with Lovable and used Claude to embed it into the firm website. The form asks about business size, revenue, industry and past CPA use, weeds out poor fits, and sends responses into ClickUp through its API and automations.

Result The firm says its prospect conversion rate rose by about 25% after the new form went live.

6 staffUS

Landing Point

Executive search and recruiting firm, New York

Its IT team fine-tuned large language models and built them into the applicant tracking system, so recruiters get help formatting resumes, creating candidate bios, drafting contracts and producing job postings. Recruiters review every output before it goes out.

Result The firm says every recruiter gets at least four hours a week back.

Not statedUS

Xander Marketing

B2B SaaS marketing agency, Kent

The founder uses Claude for client content writing, strategy sounding board work through a Claude project set up as a co-CEO, and reusable writing skills that hold client brand voice and context. ChatGPT is kept for image generation and as a backup.

Result Some content services that used to take a day to complete now take an hour.

1 staffUK

Michael Poole Estate Agents

Estate and lettings agency with 9 branches, Teesside

A SalesRook WhatsApp agent, which the firm calls Elsie, engages every sales enquiry, asks qualifying questions, identifies buyers who also have a property to sell, captures the address, assesses whether it is on patch and hands the conversation to the sales team.

Result Over a year, the agent surfaced 97 instructions that the firm could trace in its own CRM.

Not statedUK

Crosley Law

Personal injury law firm, San Antonio, Texas

An always-on agentic workflow reviews the firm website every day, audits technical search elements and metadata, flags content and structure changes, and tracks changes in search and AI search guidance. LaFleur staff keep strategy and the bigger changes.

Result Signed cases rose 41.1% year over year over the period measured.

Not statedUS

RVS iGlobal

White-label IT services provider, London

Candidates take an AI screening interview at a time that suits them. Status changes in Zoho Recruit send the invites, and scores, summaries and shortlists go back into each candidate record.

Result The recruitment team saved more than 115 hours of manual screening over six weeks.

About 143 staffUK

EmployU

Nonprofit workforce development agency

A custom Copilot agent, set up by a consultant, compiles each field worker's monthly case notes into structured progress reports for funding partners, which staff then check.

Result For staff with large caseloads, monthly report writing fell from 10 to 12 hours to under 2 hours.

More than 50 staffUS

Air One Air Conditioning, Heating, Plumbing & Electric

Family HVAC, plumbing and electrical firm, Colton, California

An AI voice agent answers after-hours and weekend calls in English and Spanish and books jobs straight onto the schedule, including same-night emergency slots.

Result Between March and mid-June nearly every after-hours lead was booked, against an estimated 30% under the old answering service.

About 12 staffUS

True Pros Heating and Air

HVAC company, Layton, Utah

An AI virtual agent replies to inbound leads within minutes, day or evening, and books the job.

Result Conversion on inbound leads rose from 9.2% to 28.5%.

Not statedUS

Superior Plumbing

Plumbing firm, Atlanta area

An AI voice agent answers calls first, books and reschedules jobs, and passes calls to a person when needed, including over the holidays.

Result The agent books 80% of the calls it answers first, and passes 30% to a person.

Not statedUS

Bill Joplin's Air Conditioning and Heating

Residential and commercial HVAC contractor, McKinney, Texas

An AI voice agent takes calls from customers who press one, books and reschedules maintenance visits in the scheduling system, and hands calls to staff when needed.

Result Over 90% of the calls the agent answered ended in a booked job, and 72% were booked with no human involvement.

Not statedUS

Brothers Plumbing, Heating & Electric

Plumbing, heating and electrical contractor, Denver

An AI virtual agent answers calls, texts and online leads around the clock, books jobs against real technician capacity, and confirms, reschedules or cancels appointments.

Result The firm says the agent has recovered $1.33 million in revenue from jobs it would otherwise have lost.

About 110 staffUS

Shazam Accounting

Virtual accounting firm for small businesses and nonprofits, Amarillo, Texas

An AI agent in BILL fills in expense accounts and splits line items on incoming client bills, based on how each supplier was coded before. The founder checks the amounts and approves.

Result The founder says the agent cuts his weekly invoice coding time by 75%.

2 staffUS

Bissell Brothers Brewing

Craft brewery, Portland, Maine

The finance team uses Ramp Stack's AI agents for reconciliations, which match bank transactions to the ledger, flag differences and build the journal entries.

Result Some reconciliations that were done once every three months are now done every month.

Not statedUS

Specialized Accounting

Accounting firm

Uses Ramp Stack, an AI system for accounting firms that works through month-end close tasks such as coding transactions, reconciling bank accounts and posting journal entries.

Result The owner says Stack has cut month-end close time by 50% on some clients.

Not statedUS

One Stop CPA

Fully digital tax and advisory firm, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Runs complex client tax questions through an AI tax research tool, then uses ChatGPT and a library of saved prompts to turn the CPA's findings into client deliverables.

Result Research on a client's merger and state tax question took about two hours, which the founder says is much less time than before.

7 staffUS

easyfundraising

Online fundraising platform for charities and causes

AI agents answer shopper and charity enquiries by email and chat in front of a six-person support team.

Result AI handles roughly 70% of incoming questions entirely or partially.

More than 85 staffUK

Outlier Group

Cosmetics and fragrance online retailer

A managed AI agent answers support tickets, most of them 'where's my order?', using courier tracking data.

Result The AI agent resolves over 80% of tickets end to end.

Not statedUK

The Free Minded Accounting Group

Bookkeeping and advisory firm

Moved bookkeeping clients onto an AI general ledger that categorises and reconciles transactions automatically.

Result The firm reports a 70% increase in workflow efficiency.

Not statedUS

The Millennial CPA

One-person tax practice, Richmond, Virginia

Keeps a Claude project per client and has it draft tax workpapers from redacted documents, which he then checks and keys in by hand.

Result A corporate tax workpaper fell from six or seven hours to about one.

Sole practitionerUS

Linda Farrow

Luxury eyewear brand, London

AI reads supplier invoices into Sage 200, splits lines across cost centres and routes them for approval.

Result Accounts payable processing time fell by about 50%.

Not statedUK

Saalfield Shad

Law firm, defence litigation team

Uses AI summaries of recent case activity instead of chasing the team for updates.

Result AI case summaries save the shareholder who runs the team 3 to 5 hours a week.

Not statedUS

Chuck Franklin Law

Litigation and personal injury law firm, Arizona

Paralegals use an AI assistant inside the case system for research, drafting, review and case timelines.

Result The AI assistant cuts work time by about 30 to 50%.

Not statedUS

OpenHive Bee Conservation

Bee conservation business, Ireland

Photographs handwritten field notes from the apiaries and has AI read, sort and digitise them.

Result Gemini frees up over half a day a week.

Not statedIreland

Hospital Veterinari Desvern

24/7 veterinary referral hospital, Catalonia

An AI scribe drafts consultation notes during the appointment instead of after it.

Result Writing up a consultation and report fell from around 23 minutes to five.

About 20 staffSpain

Fauna Veterinary Clinic

Family-owned vet practice, northwest London

An AI scribe records the consultation and drafts structured clinical notes, which staff review before saving.

Result The AI scribe saves five minutes per consultation.

4 staffUK

Cosmos Currency Exchange

Currency exchange broker, Newquay

Uses AI daily for research and to handle back-office data entry and document sorting.

Result Hours of data entry and document sorting are now done in seconds.

Not statedUK

RB Electrical Services

Electrical contractor

An AI receptionist answers calls while the electrician is on site, takes details and books the job.

Result The AI receptionist answered six calls in a few days and four became booked jobs.

Not statedUK

Olympic Glass

Insulated glass manufacturer, Sheerness

AI reads incoming customer orders from emails and drawings and turns them into order lines for the order team to check.

Result The tool ended regular overtime in order processing and paid for itself within six months.

Not statedUK

BKultured

Gut health food brand, Cork

Uses AI to turn food science papers into social media content and NotebookLM to turn notes into a podcast to listen to on the move.

Result Gemini and NotebookLM save a full day of office work every week.

Not statedIreland

DDM Residential

Estate and lettings agency, North Lincolnshire

An AI agent answers portal, website and WhatsApp enquiries out of hours and picks out valuation and mortgage leads.

Result The AI agent turned 2,151 enquiries into 192 valuation opportunities and 139 mortgage referrals.

Not statedUK

Squared

Housing association, Luton

Uses the AI in its HR platform to draft offer letters and job descriptions, and AI video interviews to shortlist candidates.

Result HR letters and job descriptions that took an hour now take five minutes.

70 staffUK

Afearn Accountancy

Sole practitioner accountancy

Uses AI data capture for bookkeeping and AI meeting notes for client meetings.

Result AI meeting notes save her countless hours of note-taking, but the source gives no figure.

Sole practitionerUK

Bangkok Rush Thai Kitchen

Thai restaurant started by a couple, Alameda, California

Used AI to find a permit route the owners didn't know about and to turn food business regulations into checklists.

Result AI found a permit route that cut their startup costs by more than ninety percent.

Not statedUS

FTE Legal

Solo lawyer for small businesses and fintechs, Oakland, California

Connected an AI assistant to his practice management system, email and calendar so it drafts NDAs and does first-pass contract reviews before he opens each request.

Result He estimates he does the same work in 20% of the time it used to take.

Sole practitionerUS

Rains

Three-lawyer venture capital and M&A law firm, New York

The managing partner talks through legal drafting on walks using a chatbot's voice mode, then edits the first draft at his desk.

Result Three to four minutes of dictation on a walk gives him a first draft by the time he's back.

At least 3 staffUS

Talbots Law

Employee-owned law firm, West Midlands

Residential conveyancers used an AI platform to review freehold and leasehold titles.

Result Each lawyer saves 5 or more hours a week on title checks.

Not statedUK

Resolve

IT support company

Eight staff from sales, marketing, HR and other teams each timed two or three regular tasks before and after using an AI assistant.

Result Eight staff found combined savings of 25.6 hours a week.

Not statedUK

Orapi Maintenance UK

Maintenance products distributor, Wednesbury

An AI intern funded by Made Smarter automated datasheet and catalogue translation, product data extraction and invoice handling.

Result The projects saved more than 200 working days across the business.

52 staffUK

Merz Apothecary

Family-owned apothecary and online retailer, Chicago

Used the AI built into its e-commerce platform to produce sales reports on demand, and searched years of old files with Gemini.

Result Sales reports that took hours to build now take minutes.

More than 60 staffUS

Heron Financial

Mortgage and protection adviser, North East England

Staff on an AI apprenticeship linked AI to the firm's CRM to pull and calculate client data, and automated recurring update emails.

Result The operations manager saves an estimated three to four hours a week.

Not statedUK

Siroco Gemelos 22

124-room holiday apartment complex, Costa del Sol

Used an AI messaging platform to answer guest messages across WhatsApp, booking sites and email.

Result The AI automated an average of 90.7% of guest conversations over a year.

Not statedSpain

Hospitable

Short-term rental management platform

Used AI agents to answer most customer support queries, alongside code, finance and marketing work.

Result AI answers 70% of customer support queries.

140 staffNot stated

Clarion Safety Systems

Safety products e-commerce business, Milford, Pennsylvania

Used an AI chat agent on its website to answer product and safety questions round the clock.

Result The resolution rate rose from 39% to 56%.

More than 40 staffUS

Rocky and Johanna Johnson

Woodworking business on a ranch, Rogers County, Oklahoma

Uses AI to design cutting templates and replacement parts for old machinery, then 3D-prints the parts on site.

Result A weeks-long wait for a thirty-dollar part became a matter of hours.

Not statedUS

Pearson Farming

Dairy farm business, two 500-cow units in north Wales

Measured grass cover with a phone app that scans paddocks on video and learns each field's growth, instead of walking with a plate meter.

Result He measured 27 paddocks in 30 minutes.

Not statedUK

Mobile People Powered Logistics

Logistics and delivery firm, Birmingham

Automated customer phone calls to confirm delivery slots, and used AI to improve links between internal systems.

Result Rescheduled deliveries fell by 22%.

Not statedUK

GT Coffee Co.

Coffee brand, Detroit

Used AI to work out cost of goods per product, analyse website traffic, set prices and build marketing campaigns.

Result Website conversion rose from 1.5% to 2.3% of visitors.

Not statedUS

Lenehans

Hardware retailer, Dublin

Put an AI shop assistant on every page of its website to answer product questions using live stock data.

Result Shoppers who used the assistant converted at 3.6 times the rate of the next best channel.

Not statedIreland

Vitiliglow

Skincare brand for people with vitiligo, Northamptonshire

Added an AI colour-matching tool to its online shop so customers can find their shade without sending photos.

Result The colour matching tool generated more than £5,000 in sales within 72 hours.

Not statedUK

Cocorose London

Footwear brand, London

Used ChatGPT to work out why website traffic collapsed and to build a new content strategy.

Result Content strategies that would have taken months with an agency took a week.

Not statedUK

BigGeo

Data company, Calgary

Used an AI recruiting agent to write and post job adverts, rank applicants and run first-round interviews.

Result The AI agent narrowed 20 applications down to three candidates.

40 staffCanada

Extend Robotics

Robotics and VR tech company

One HR person used an AI recruitment agent to sift CVs and run screening interviews for seven roles at once.

Result CV screening time fell by around 70%.

Nearly 20 staffUK

Alice Bazdikian

Solo founder of a small business AI coaching firm

Runs month-end invoicing, overdue reminders and a monthly income and spending summary through a chatbot.

Result A whole month's invoicing now takes about ten minutes with Claude.

Sole practitionerUS

Tyne Chease

Vegan cheese maker

Used AI in its accounts software to prompt invoice chasing and flag the day's finance admin.

Result Sage Copilot saves the team about 12 to 14 hours a week.

Not statedUK

Lincoln Accounting

Two-partner accounting and tax practice

Moved bookkeeping clients onto an AI general ledger that auto-categorises transactions and speeds up the month-end close.

Result Monthly close fell from about 3 hours per client to about 1.

2 staffNot stated

McGroddy Brennan Solicitors

Small law firm

A senior associate wrote a strict AI policy and checklist, then showed staff practical uses every day. The firm used only pro versions of tools, and a solicitor checked every AI-created document before it was issued.

Result Take-up was good, especially for document review and admin, but the source gives no figures.

Not statedIreland

Cast Consultancy

Construction consultancy

Uses a specialist AI tool to spot inconsistencies, missing information and possible compliance issues in Gateway 2 submissions before they go to the regulator. Training was built around the tool.

Result Around 10 to 15 project managers use the tool to spot gaps and compliance issues before submission.

Around 90 staffUK

Manak Solicitors

Full-service law firm with four offices

Lawyers use a legal AI assistant to check and extract information from large document sets, compare terms across agreements, prepare disclosure lists and chronologies and produce first drafts.

Result The firm estimates its lawyers spend 60% less time on tasks where they use the tool.

55 staffUK

Marketing agency

Copilot writes meeting summaries and follow-up emails in Teams, turns raw campaign data into charts and slides and summarises the morning inbox with draft replies for staff to check.

Result The agency recovered 5 hours a week per employee.

25 staffNot stated

Candy's Cupcakes

Bakery selling online and on TikTok Shop

When a staff member left, the owners used Claude to automate printing orders, gift tags and labels and to download topper templates. Claude also helped build a tool in three hours that works out daily production numbers.

Result The owners believe a one-button label printing tool saves 86 hours a month.

21 staffUK

Penguin FM

Facilities management firm

Automates the whole job-sheet cycle (tracking, chasing, capturing and updating) so it runs in the background. It was later extended to supplier bills processing. People keep the client calls and judgement work.

Result Helpdesk capacity rose by 40% in 90 days.

Not statedUK

Progressive Credit Union

Credit union with seven branches

A prototype chatbot answers questions about branch hours, account requirements and policies from the credit union's own documents. It hands over to a live agent with the full conversation when it can't help.

Result Staff testing found the chatbot could answer about 90% of general enquiries.

Not statedIreland

Conrad Estate Agents

Independent estate agent for sales and lettings

Inbound calls and Rightmove and Zoopla enquiries go to an AI voice agent that answers, qualifies the caller and books viewings, including after hours. It also handles email enquiries and booking confirmations.

Result The AI line answered 273 calls in the first 6.5 weeks with none going to voicemail.

Sole practitionerUK

Burker

Watch and jewellery brand selling direct

An AI agent sits on website chat as the first line of support and answers all where-is-my-order requests, cutting what goes to the outsourced email team.

Result The chatbot resolved about 80% of conversations in April.

About 20 staffNetherlands

Tailfin

Bikepacking equipment maker selling online

An AI chat agent answers product and order questions on the website, including order status through a WooCommerce link. It hands over to staff when they're available.

Result The chatbot resolved 71% of customer enquiries without a person.

Not statedUK

GCIT

Managed IT service provider

An AI coworker called Belle triages every ticket, filters out noise and duplicates, writes up investigations and closes routine tickets. Anything risky needs human approval, and people handle outages.

Result Average first response time fell by 80%, from 5.5 hours to 1.1 hours.

Not statedAustralia

Dufaylite Developments Ltd

Paper products manufacturer

Takes incoming orders, current capacity and constraints and generates the production schedule overnight, updating it through the day. The operations team used to spend each morning doing this by hand.

Result Planning time fell from 8 hours a day to under 2.

Not statedUK

Decorative Panels Ltd

Flat-pack furniture panel manufacturer

Takes customer orders, material specs and waste constraints and produces optimised cutting plans in minutes. It sits on top of the existing order system and spreadsheets.

Result A month-long cutting optimisation job now takes under 30 minutes.

Not statedUK

Spacegoods

Wellness brand selling direct and through retail

Someone pastes a screenshot of an inbound shipment into Slack. Claude reads it, matches each item to live inventory IDs, builds the warehouse receiving order, checks the read-back and posts the box labels back. B2B orders are held for a person to review.

Result Creating warehouse receiving orders now saves about 6 hours a month.

Not statedUK

Civil engineering contractor

The pre-construction team uses the platform to write first drafts, pull past content into new answers and run an automated review before senior staff finish them.

Result The team completed six bid responses within 6 hours.

Not statedUK

JMJW Consulting

Bid and grant writing consultancy

AI agents search council websites and board minutes, re-read call text and specifications and write early drafts. Experienced writers do the strategy and final quality work.

Result Each proposal saves 32 to 40 hours.

Not statedNot stated

Vertis Media

Marketing and advertising agency

Trained the whole team in-house since 2023 to use AI for research, reporting and content production, then launched new AI-enabled services for clients.

Result New AI-enabled services contributed to an estimated 20% rise in turnover.

Around 6 staffUK

Profix Maintenance

Property maintenance firm for storm, fire and flood repair

Pulls job data (work done, materials, labour hours, costs) from the firm's Google Sheets and has a large language model draft a customer-ready quote. Staff refine it with short instructions, then the approved quote goes into SortMyBooks.

Result Quotes that took hours to prepare can now be done in minutes.

Not statedIreland

Urban Rest

Serviced apartments and hotel operator

Thirty shortlisted candidates for a new hotel's front-of-house roles did an AI-led interview instead of a phone screen. The one-person HR team then reviewed responses and called around 10.

Result One hiring campaign saved 5 to 10 hours and hired 4 people from 1,300 applicants.

About 150 staffAustralia, New Zealand, Ireland and UK

We Are Zenith

Recruitment, apprenticeship and workforce development organisation

Put three staff from recruitment, marketing and client relationships through a Level 3 Digital Support Technician apprenticeship with an AI pathway. They now use AI for first drafts, building web pages and sourcing candidates.

Result Staff report saving up to eight hours a week.

Not statedUK

Lindy

Software start-up

After the in-house recruiter left, the Head of Sales ran hiring herself. The AI reviews inbound applications, sources candidates, researches them and handles outreach.

Result AI screening saves 2 to 4 hours a day on inbound candidates.

50 staffUSA

Ready Health

Private healthcare provider

Ranks every application out of 100 against the job description, then runs AI video interviews with the shortlist using questions the manager chose and transcribes the answers.

Result AI screening saved 30 hours of first-stage screening on a single role.

18 staffUK

Clarity Counts

Chartered accountancy practice

Runs credit control for the practice's own invoices. The AI sends payment reminders at the times clients tend to pay, including evenings and weekends, and moves clients onto Direct Debit.

Result Average days paid late fell from 40 to 4.

Not statedUK

Love Your Accountants

Accountancy practice

Picks up invoices and receipts from client Gmail and Outlook inboxes, extracts the data and pushes draft records straight into Xero for the team to review.

Result Inbox monitoring fell from 20 hours a week to 2 or 3 hours.

Not statedUK

Nordell

Plastic injection moulding manufacturer

Reads supplier invoices, checks them against purchase orders and company records, flags discrepancies for review and tracks each invoice from receipt to payment. Hooked into the firm's DELMIAWorks ERP.

Result The software is expected to save more than 60 hours of admin a month.

More than 80 staffUK