Equipping your teams for the AI future

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Overcoming common AI fears and misconceptions

So, what’s the answer?

Unlock real business value with Focus Group’s AI solutions

For SMEs, AI is now an essential factor in maintaining a competitive edge. And while many have the right tools in place, just 28% of UK workers are acquiring their skills through work-sponsored AI training.

Without a centralised approach to AI training and guidance, businesses are putting their productivity at risk – with employees lacking the confidence to begin using AI tools. Engagement can deteriorate without adequate in-house support for AI learning, in turn allowing reliability and security concerns to take hold.

Solutions like Cloudflare, Microsoft Sentinel, and Cisco Secure Access deal with these concerns by strengthening security and preventing sensitive data sharing with AI tools. But you should always have a proper learning programme in place that underpins employee confidence so they can maximise AI’s benefits.

Take generative AI tools for example, they offer huge productivity gains and cost savings when embraced correctly. 41% of small business employees are successfully harnessing AI to free up their time for work on higher value tasks.

But their usefulness hinges on the quality of the prompts they receive. Employees may avoid prompting altogether if they don’t feel empowered to craft them, especially if they are concerned about violating compliance or governance policies.

All this can undermine, rather than accelerate, the efficiencies that AI can bring.

Overcoming common AI fears and misconceptions

AI represents a significant change to the business order, so it’s normal for SMEs – and their employees – to feel apprehensive about AI adoption. The most common concerns include fears about job security, data risks, implementation complexity and high costs. However, the reality with AI is quite the opposite:

• Job security: AI tools like Microsoft Copilot are designed to enhance an employee’s capabilities, not replace them. By handling the repetitive tasks, AI frees up time for high-value work like strategic thinking, creativity and relationship building.
• Data security and privacy: Modern enterprise AI solutions operate within your existing security frameworks. This ensures sensitive data remains within your organisation's boundaries and isn't used to train external models.
• Implementation complexity: Today's AI tools are designed for everyday users, integrating seamlessly into familiar applications like Word, Excel and Teams. Start with simple, low-risk implementations and expand as your team's confidence grows.
• Cost concerns: AI tools provide predictable subscription models, with productivity gains often offsetting the costs within months. Consider starting with a pilot programme to demonstrate ROI before wider rollout.

So, what’s the answer?

For AI tools to be truly valuable to your business, they need to be easy to access and understand. And that starts with fully equipping your teams to make the most of them – here’s how:

• Let teams know the potential benefits of your chosen AI solutions, whether that’s better security, a reduction in repetitive admin tasks or smoother communications.
• Move beyond adoption with a centralised approach to training that’s clearly communicated to teams.
• Appoint AI champions who can serve as advisors to those who are new to the technology.
• Encourage honest feedback so you can improve and refine your approach.

With these guardrails in place, teams will be able to access the supercharged productivity that AI is known for. The positive effects are especially valuable if your business is trying to balance efficiency and hybrid working models.

Unlock real business value with Focus Group’s AI solutions

At Focus Group, we’ve gained extensive real-world experience in delivering AI implementations that generate exceptional business value. By positioning the right AI technology with the right business case, we’ll guide you to solve real problems and deliver measurable returns. Here’s how some of our AI solutions could support your business:

• AI voice call centres: With a Five9 Contact Centre, you can automatically hand over repetitive customer queries to intelligent virtual agents. It’s perfect for freeing up employee time while making customer experiences seamless.
• AI connectivity: With a high-speed 5G infrastructure in place, you’ll have the ultra-low latency foundation needed for real-time AI applications. Offering speeds up to 100x faster than 4G, it’s the ideal solution for future proofing your business.
• AI tools and technologies: Microsoft Copilot provides AI productivity benefits across the wider Microsoft 365 suite of applications, while Cisco Meraki deployments use AI to automate network management for significant time and cost savings.
• AI cyber security: By analysing data from your business’ email communications, our AI solutions create profiles of trusted relationships to automatically filter out malicious emails.

If you’re looking to take your first steps with AI training, we can help. Our team will be happy to talk you through the best solutions and resources to build your programme.

Get in touch to get started. You can also read our blog, offering a step-by-step guide to overcoming AI apprehension.