Once upon a time the word “disrupt” meant to cause problems or to destroy a process. But in today’s competitive, fast-moving, tech-driven world, “disrupt” means to innovate -- and innovating is shorthand for winning. These days, disruption is a business goal, an industry ambition -- in short, it’s all the rage. A key part of successful disruption? Keeping up with the never-ending rollout of new technologies.

Consider, for example, automation technology. Automation is disrupting old, slow and inefficient approaches to getting things done and helping business owners save money, reach more customers and streamline repetitive processes.

The great news is that small business owners are particularly well poised to take advantage of new technologies because they can adapt more quickly to change than large corporations.

Who’s afraid of the big bad robot?

Let’s first disrupt the myth that small business owners or the self-employed are resistant to change. A recent survey from Intuit, Small Business in the Age of AI, found that small business owners are overwhelmingly in favor of adopting automation technology and machine learning. And they’re not too worried about Artificial Intelligence (AI) negatively impacting their livelihoods.

The study surveyed 550 small business owners and managers and found:

• 54% of small businesses view automation technology positively and as an opportunity
• 31% believe automation will allow them to grow their employee base
• 59% said automation wouldn’t change their employee base
• 5% see automation primarily as a threat
• 1% think automation will bring significant job losses

The future is already here

You may not realize you’re already using automation technology, sometimes even on a daily basis. Did you save a photo to Dropbox, share a report on Google Docs or unsubscribe from an email list lately? You’re an AI pro! Of the small business owners surveyed, 66% said they were already using some form of automation technology for a variety of everyday work functions. Consider:

• 29% use it for finance and billing
• 28% for marketing
• 27% for sales
• 25% for customer service
• 15% for operations
• 9% for production

Small business owners really appreciate the time- and money-saving aspects of automating processes, not to mention the innovative boost their business enjoys when employing technologies like Big Data, machine learning, natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

QB Community member, @Adam_Fenner, an accountant, has experienced first-hand how automation has made his billing so much simpler. “For my regular billings and monthly invoices to clients that are recurring, I use the functionality within the invoicing area [of QBO]. I have found it to be helpful and it saves me the effort of reinventing the wheel every month.”

Robots, they’re just like us

If you think about it, robots are not too different from entrepreneurs, really. Entrepreneurs see a need and meet a need, which is exactly what automated technology is designed to do.

Of course, there are still plenty of humans behind all this AI -- who else is programming and “teaching” the machines? The trick is not making them too smart. Just kidding (sort of!). The key for small business owners to effectively embrace and integrate AI in their business is to use it as a time-saving tool while still building, maintaining and strengthening the most human part of your company -- its heart.

“Alexa, add learning about automated technologies to my to-do list.”

Now it's your turn!

QB Community members, have you adopted automated technologies for use in your business? How are you using automated technology already?

Not yet a member? No problem. Just click HERE to sign up in a flash. Then browse around and weigh in on questions like this one!