The news: AI is growing in importance for small and medium-sized businesses, saving SMB marketers time and money, often with benefits outweighing risks like public backlash.

• AI helps US SMB marketers save about 13 hours per person per week and cut operating costs by about $4,700 per month on each team, per ActiveCampaign. Separately, Thryv found that 90% of US small businesses save 11 or more hours per week with AI.
• 80% think AI is crucial for reaching new customers, and 75% think AI will help improve content marketing.

Where savings are going: With funds freed up by AI-driven productivity, SMBs are investing in marketing and teams.

• 55% are using savings to invest in more marketing and advertising.
• 38% are expanding product, inventory, and services catalogs.
• 28% are reinvesting AI savings by hiring new employees.

AI adoption plans shouldn’t stop at implementation, and should include actionable plans for where to put time and cost savings.

How marketers are using AI: Most SMB marketers use generative AI (genAI) for brainstorming, but fewer use for execution or performance tracking.

• 63% use it to “imagine” generative ad ideas and creative concepts, per ActiveCampaign, and 59% use it to create assets and optimize campaigns.
• 53% apply AI to measure business impact and ad performance, leaving a gap in analytics.

Unlocking AI’s full potential could require extending its use to predict market trends and identify underutilized revenue opportunities, per ActiveCampaign.

Key to trust: As SMBs implement AI, building trust is critical, and public response may be tied to how clearly AI use is communicated.

• 64% of companies that use AI daily say the public has responded “very positively” to their application of AI.
• In contrast, only 28% of infrequent users received the same response, with most seeing neutral reactions.

Businesses using AI should disclose their AI use and be ready to discuss implications, as public backlash may be limited if brands stay transparent.

Our take: As AI saves companies time and money, it's crucial to have plans in place for how to use them. Marketers should use that time to test new creative strategies, reach out to new customers, and act on campaign analytics gathered by AI.

AI-driven cost savings can be reinvested in higher-quality marketing content and expansion of product catalogs.