AI's Impact on Small Businesses Is Still Limited – For Better or for Worse
Despite the growing excitement around artificial intelligence, its impact on small businesses in Russia remains relatively modest.
Valeriy Boginskiy, Chief Commercial Officer, Dolya Rosta JSC
Much of the gap between expectations and reality stems from the limited availability of fully featured AI tools on the Russian market. Most solutions available to entrepreneurs today focus on basic generative AI tasks such as drafting social media posts, creating images, brainstorming marketing ideas, and producing content plans and promotional materials.
In practice, these represent some of the simplest use cases for artificial intelligence. It is therefore too early to argue that AI has fundamentally changed how small businesses operate. Adoption remains selective and is concentrated primarily in individual operational tasks.
The widespread use of AI-generated content also comes with risks. Material produced entirely by AI is increasingly perceived by audiences as formulaic and lacking a distinctive voice. As a result, excessive automation can reduce not only content effectiveness but also customer engagement and brand loyalty.
Real Adoption Starts Inside the Company
Today, AI delivers its greatest value in tasks involving the collection, organization, and use of knowledge within a business.
One of the clearest examples is the rise of corporate knowledge bases and AI-powered internal reference systems. But the effectiveness of these tools depends less on the technology itself than on the quality of internal processes. Simply deploying an AI platform is not enough. Companies also need to keep it up to date and ensure employees actually use it.
When those conditions are met, AI can dramatically accelerate information retrieval and simplify work with internal policies and technical documentation. The benefits are especially visible in employee training, where AI helps staff quickly find answers to day-to-day questions and navigate complex workflows using the company's own internal guidance.
Another fast-growing application is customer service. AI-powered chatbots now handle routine customer inquiries, help users schedule appointments, and provide information on demand. Similar tools existed before, but artificial intelligence has made them considerably more flexible and adaptable.
Data Analytics Remains AI's Biggest Opportunity
Today, the most valuable application of AI is data analysis and decision support.
On our investment platform, for example, AI processes large volumes of customers' banking transaction data. The system automatically determines which incoming payments represent operating revenue and which do not, then generates analytics describing the company's cash flows. Those insights allow companies to evaluate revenue consistency, identify periods of business growth or slowdown, and generate additional performance indicators for further analysis.
That approach significantly reduces manual work, allowing analysts to focus on interpreting results rather than compiling them. These solutions, however, require substantial computing resources, technical infrastructure, and specialized expertise. For now, they remain accessible primarily to technologically mature organizations and have yet to see widespread adoption among small businesses.
AI's Biggest Impact Is Still Ahead
A paradox is emerging. On one hand, headlines around the world are dominated by stories about rapid advances in artificial intelligence. On the other, most of those advances have had little direct impact on the day-to-day operations of Russian small businesses. Yet, that gap is likely to narrow over time.
Large banks, fintech companies, and online marketplaces are expected to become the main drivers of that change. They possess the data, computing capacity, and investment resources needed to develop and deploy increasingly sophisticated AI solutions.
It is still difficult to predict exactly how those advances will benefit small and midsize businesses. Even so, more accurate analytics, personalized financial products, and new automation services already appear to be realistic next steps.
New Jobs, New Ways of Working
Over the long term, artificial intelligence is likely to reshape the economy much as mechanization and industrial automation did in earlier eras. As more business processes become automated through algorithms and intelligent systems, employment patterns, labor productivity, and overall business efficiency are expected to evolve as well.
For small and midsize businesses, one of the most significant changes could be the emergence of entirely new professional roles. These include professionals responsible for training AI models, configuring AI tools, monitoring their performance, and adapting them to specific business needs. It is through these new roles and practical business applications that artificial intelligence is most likely to make its biggest impact on the small and midsize business sector.
