The vast majority (82%) of small businesses in the UK are feeling the pressure to adopt emerging technologies such as AI. 

This is according to a recent survey of 531 UK business leaders conducted by Startups.co.uk, which identified the pressure small businesses in the UK are feeling across various sectors as the UK government urges for more AI adoption. 

The recent announcement from prime minister Keir Starmer has drawn focus on leveraging AI in new ways in the UK under the AI Action Plan. 

While technology and software firms (23%) were unsurprisingly feeling the heat to adopt AI, hospitality and tourism (22%) and finance and fintech firms (20%) also reported feeling a high degree of pressure to adopt emerging technologies. Education (17%) and ecommerce and retail (16%) also noted a high degree of pressure to adopt AI. 

Despite feeling the pinch now, more UK businesses said that they expect AI to disrupt their industry in the long term rather than in the short term, indicating that the impact of artificial intelligence on UK businesses could be a slow burner.

The survey findings show that while 67% of UK business leaders expect artificial intelligence to impact their industry in 2025, a considerable 72% of business leaders anticipate AI to disrupt their industry over the next 3 years. 

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This suggests that the impact of artificial intelligence on UK businesses could actually be greater in coming years rather than in the immediate future.

“Kudos to Keir and Kyle for the AI ambition and if action follows, it can only be of benefit to UK productivity and business growth,” editor of Startups.co.uk, Zohra Huda, said. 

“However, our data reveals a surprising side effect of new and emerging tech – the anxiety it induces in businesses to keep up at a time when they are already under huge amounts of pressure to stay afloat. As the Startups 100 Index for 2025 highlights, enterprises that don’t fear longterm disruption are those who have AI embedded into their business models.”