{"id":13563,"date":"2026-08-03T15:13:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T15:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=13563"},"modified":"2026-08-03T15:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T15:13:43","slug":"how-can-small-businesses-succeed-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/eu\/blog\/how-can-small-businesses-succeed-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Data First, AI Second: How Can Small Businesses Succeed With AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)<\/a> face a unique pressure: they must innovate with AI<\/a> to keep pace with the market, but they haven\u2019t historically had access to the same technology, investment, or expertise as their larger counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the journey to AI value is becoming easier for SMBs to navigate. Today, leaders are designing and deploying autonomous agents<\/a> in the workforce to support functions from sales to service to marketing, without expanding their headcount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they didn\u2019t get there overnight. Organisations that build a solid data foundation are more likely to see the kind of AI-driven growth that delivers a real return on investment. This means organising and unifying siloed data spread across multiple applications and stores so that AI agents can leverage it in cross-functional workflows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salesforce lowers the barrier to entry by offering a range of CRM Suites and Success Plans<\/a> with embedded AI capabilities to support SMBs\u2019 AI transformations, regardless of how harmonised their data is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s discuss how to lay the groundwork for AI implementation, whatever your size or position in the market \u2013 and learn about the businesses already seeing results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building the data foundation for AI in SMBs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

AI needs high-quality, structured, and accessible data to drive outcomes. Take these steps to clean and unify your data, so you can deploy autonomous agents that will help your business scale at pace:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audit your data silos:<\/strong> Map out where your customer and business data lives. If your sales team works from one tool and your service team uses another, your AI agents will struggle to build an accurate picture of the business and coordinate workflows across departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Establish a single source of truth: <\/strong>Before procuring an extensive portfolio of AI tools, invest in a unified platform for your data. Centralised data equips AI agents with the necessary intelligence to make accurate, confident decisions \u2013 at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Salesforce Data 360<\/a> helps businesses connect disparate systems to make data available through one complete, trusted view of the business.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/span>\n