New data from the Marketing AI Institute shows a concerning trend: a lack of AI skills is quickly becoming a major growth risk for companies worldwide.
We’ve all heard about the massive opportunities AI offers. But it’s time to recognise the other side. Companies that lag behind in AI skills will eventually lag behind in growth. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, a lack of AI skills is a risk you can’t afford to ignore.
To get a real-world perspective, we spoke to two of our Regional Marketing Directors, Ged Leigh and Colin Stickland, to hear how they’re using AI with their clients—and what you can do right now to build AI skills within your team.
What’s the current state of play?
Following the enormous hype (and wild speculation) that accompanied the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, AI is now being used in simple, practical ways in businesses both large and small. We started by asking Colin and Ged how they’re using AI day-to-day.
Colin uses AI note-taking tools (like Fathom, Read.ai and Fireflies) to capture important details and actions during meetings. This allows him to focus fully on the conversation without worrying about missing details. "It’s brilliant because it captures the context of what's being said and helps with follow-ups. It’s surprisingly smart,” Colin explained.
AI also plays a role in refining emails and presentations—he often asks AI to evaluate his emails, ensuring his tone and clarity hit the mark. "It doesn’t rewrite the email for me, but it gives feedback I use to refine it,” he said. The result is clearer, more effective communication.
Ged has taken things further, using AI to help with more strategic tasks like creating customer personas, forecasting business performance and building AI bots. For instance, after running a client workshop, he used AI to analyse the data from the workshop and suggest updates to the marketing plan.
"We quickly generated an outline and calendar for the plan that everyone in the room agreed on,” Ged shared. AI has also been instrumental in data analysis, helping him to forecast long-term performance by analysing both historical data and external factors.
The opportunities are clear. That said, it’s also important to be aware of the risks.
The UK government has outlined its AI strategy and businesses will soon face new regulations specifically addressing AI-driven decision-making and data protection.
Staying compliant as these laws evolve is critical—especially for SMEs that handle customer data. Many companies aren’t yet prepared, with studies showing that just 10% of UK businesses have a formal AI policy in place.
For SMEs, the risk isn’t just falling behind competitors, it’s failing to meet the ethical and legal standards that will soon be required.
How to safely build AI literacy in your business
So how can you build AI skills and ensure your business doesn’t fall behind? Here are six practical steps to start building AI literacy within your team.
1. Prioritise security and confidentiality
AI uses anything you input as ‘training data’ to refine its models. As a result, anything you input is technically entering the public domain. Every business needs a clear policy on how AI will be used and how data will be protected - especially those that handle sensitive client data.
“You can’t stick your head in the sand and say, ‘We’re not going to use AI.’ Even if you’re not using ChatGPT, chances are the tools you do use already rely on AI in some way. Every company needs to have a policy for how they will engage with AI, especially around data security,” Ged explained.
If you’re wondering what an AI usage policy looks like, feel free to take a look at ours.
2. Provide training
AI isn’t something you can expect your team to figure out on their own. Just like learning Excel or any other essential tool, structured training is a must.
“You can't just hand people tools and expect them to figure it out. Training is key and staff need to be shown where to get it. They need foundational AI training, even on simple things like how to prompt effectively,” Ged stressed.
Investing in professional AI training will give your team the confidence to explore AI's possibilities and apply them to their daily work. Here are two courses that will help you and your team understand the basics of AI:
3. Pay for better tools
While free AI tools are a good way to experiment, they’re often limited. The free version of ChatGPT is vastly inferior to the paid version (just £20 a month).
“A lot of people tried AI a year ago with free tools and said, ‘It gave me rubbish results.’ But the paid tools today are far more capable. You have to invest to get good outputs,” Ged pointed out.
4. Follow the right people
AI is evolving fast, and keeping up with the latest developments is crucial. Following trusted voices in the AI space can help you stay ahead of the curve.
“Follow people who know what they’re talking about. There's a lot of misinformation out there, and following the right people can help you stay on track,” Colin advised.
Some of Ged’s favourite accounts to follow:
5. Get good at prompting
Knowing how to ask AI the right questions—prompting—is a key skill. Even simple improvements in how you frame a query can lead to significantly better results.
“There’s a big difference between a good prompt and a bad one, and companies should invest time learning how to get better results,” Ged noted.
Resources like Ben’s Bites provide hundreds of ready-made prompts for teams of all sizes.
6. Be curious & experiment
Experimentation is critical. AI isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution; the more you experiment, the more you’ll uncover how it can benefit your specific business needs.
“You've got to be bloody curious,” Ged said. “Most people are just playing with tools, but it’s crucial to experiment with AI in real-world use cases to learn what it can do. AI is actually very good at telling you whether it can help with a task and what it needs from you in order to get started.”
If you’re wondering whether AI can help, ask it!
Embrace AI or fall behind
The message is clear: a lack of AI literacy is a real and growing risk for businesses. AI isn’t going away, and those that fail to adopt it will find themselves falling behind faster than they might expect.
If you want to learn more about building AI literacy in your business, you can watch our webinar - The CEO’s Guide to AI: Empowering SMEs for Competitive Advantage, where Ged and Colin dive deeper into these strategies and offer practical advice for getting started.
