Written by Julien Ricciarelli-Bonnal

16 December 2025

AI Adoption in SMEs: Why Most Companies Have No Strategy

Artificial intelligence is entering small and mid-sized businesses faster than any previous technological wave. Content generation, customer support, automation, basic analytics — the adoption curve is steep, enthusiastic, and almost entirely unstructured. Across France, the UK, Europe and the US, the same paradox appears: companies are using AI everywhere, but understanding it nowhere. They are experimenting without designing, implementing without governing, and accelerating without knowing where they want to go.

This creates an environment where technology moves faster than intention, and where tools replace thinking instead of enhancing it. AI is not the problem; improvisation is. The absence of structure, purpose and strategy is what turns a powerful opportunity into a fragile illusion of progress.

Opportunistic adoption: when companies use AI without asking “why?”

In countless SMEs, AI usage is reactive rather than deliberate. People use tools because they exist, not because they serve a defined purpose. The result is a patchwork of micro-initiatives: a summary here, a reformulation there, a few automated messages, a handful of generated visuals. These actions feel productive but rarely build anything meaningful. They occupy le temps rather than orient the organisation.

Without a strategic audit to clarify priorities, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, AI becomes a layer of noise plutôt qu’un levier. The company produces more output, but not more value; more speed, but not more direction. When leaders eventually realise that AI has changed their practices without changing their results, they also discover the cost of having confused experimentation with transformation.

A lack of governance that silently exposes the entire organisation

The second issue — quieter but more dangerous — is the absence of governance. SMEs are adopting AI the same way they once adopted social media: chaotically, individually, and without rules. No clear owner, no validation process, no risk assessment, no framework for confidentiality or responsibility. In such a context, AI becomes a vulnerability: inconsistent content, inaccurate outputs, sensitive data pasted into public tools, decisions influenced by unverified text.

Governance is not bureaucratic; it is foundational. Deciding who validates, who supervises, who corrects and who monitors is what differentiates a company using AI as a toy from a company using AI as an advantage. Without structure, AI weakens; with structure, AI strengthens.

No vision, no AI strategy

The deeper reason behind the absence of AI strategy is the absence of strategy tout court. Many SMEs operate quarter to quarter, reacting more than planning. AI, in this environment, becomes décor — a signal of modernity without substance. A company without direction integrating AI does not become more efficient; it becomes faster at expressing its inconsistencies.

This is where consulting marketing support becomes essential. AI is not a strategy; it is a multiplier. It increases the impact of what already exists. If your vision is clear, AI accelerates it. If your vision is confused, AI amplifies the confusion. Technology cannot replace intention; it can only reveal it.

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What real AI integration requires — and why few companies are ready

AI becomes transformative when the organisation does the work it had avoided for years: clarifying processes, defining responsibilities, articulating priorities, and understanding which parts of the business rely on human discernment rather than automatisation. AI forces uncomfortable but necessary questions: where are we wasting time? Where are our blind spots? What do we actually expect from our teams? What matters more than speed?

The SMEs that succeed will not be the ones that adopt the most tools, but the ones that adopt tools with purpose. AI is not a race; it is a structure. And structure is a choice, not a plugin.