Many SMEs are sitting on a goldmine of customer data: from purchase histories to support conversations but lack the resources to analyse it effectively. How can artificial intelligence level the playing field and help smaller businesses compete with enterprise-level customer insights?
Here’s the reality: while Fortune 500 companies have entire teams of data scientists mining customer behavior patterns, most small and medium enterprises are drowning in spreadsheets, struggling to make sense of the wealth of information they collect every day. Your point-of-sale system captures buying patterns. Your email support generates conversations full of customer sentiment. Your website tracks visitor behavior. Your social media shows engagement trends. But connecting these dots? That’s where most SMEs hit a wall.
Today we’re discussing how AI tools can help small businesses uncover patterns and insights they might be missing, without needing a data science team or enterprise budget.
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Ada Wang, Group Manager Partnership Development at Intuit QuickBooks Australia
“We all agree small businesses are the lifeblood of Australia’s economy. While working with thousands of small businesses in Australia, the biggest challenge we hear from business owners is “not having enough time”. They often feel overwhelmed juggling the responsibilities and tasks, because small business owners are typically the CEO, head of marketing, sales manager, HR department, and even the cleaner, all rolled into one.
“According to a study, 57% of SMBs already use at least 3 different digital tools (e.g. apps or software) to manage their business – accounting software is the most popular digital tool.
“I see immense potential for Australian SMEs to harness AI for unparalleled customer insights. The “no time” challenge is real, but AI is the ultimate time multiplier. AI moves SMEs beyond basic demographics. Imagine accurately segmenting your customer base by not just what they buy, but why they buy, their financial habits, or even their propensity to churn. QuickBooks leverages AI to review and categorise data such as transactions, and recommend actions based on your business’s performance, your customers’ behavior.
“By strategically adapting and utilising AI tools, small business owners can reclaim invaluable time for strategic growth and better work-life balance.”
Kumar Mitra, Executive Director, CAP & ANZ – Lenovo ISG
“Understanding your customers is fundamental to business success, and today, AI makes that faster, smarter and more precise than ever before. For SMEs, using AI to gain customer insights does not need to be complicated. All it requires is high-quality data, accessible tools that fit into existing workflows, and support from trusted partners.
“According to Lenovo’s 2025 CIO Playbook, ANZ CIOs identified data quality as the biggest barrier to successful AI adoption. For AI to work, customer data needs to be complete, consistent, and easy to access — whether it’s purchase history, service interactions or preferences.
“With strong data foundations, SMEs can tap into AI-powered tools to personalise marketing, enhance customer service and analyse behaviour. These solutions help businesses anticipate customer needs and deliver more relevant experiences. At Lenovo, we’ve seen these results firsthand. Our GenAI assistants have boosted support efficiency by 50% and improved user satisfaction by 17%.
“Strategic partnerships also make a difference. Providers offering scalable platforms, proven models and compliance-ready solutions can help SMEs close capability gaps and adopt AI with confidence.
“By combining quality data, practical tools and trusted guidance, SMEs can turn AI into a real competitive advantage — using it to better understand their customers, respond to their needs and grow stronger relationships.”
Liz Adeniji, Area Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Twilio Segment
“AI is an incredibly useful tool for SMEs to better engage with their customers. In our recent State of Customer Engagement research, almost all (97%) of Australian businesses surveyed said AI is improving customer-facing operations such as support, marketing, and personalisation. Businesses also reported positive outcomes from using AI to personalise customer experiences, including higher customer spending (34%), and greater customer retention and repeat spending (34%).
“There is a clincher, however, and that is that successful AI use requires real-time customer data, and plenty of it. To generate actionable insights, AI needs a continuous flow of accurate, consented data. This is why in the age of AI, Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are more important than ever. They unify customer data from diverse touchpoints like websites, apps, social media, and others, to build a holistic customer profile. With these rich data points, businesses can get to know their customers on a whole new level, understanding customer preferences, behaviours, and context. What’s more, today’s leading SMEs aren’t just applying AI, they’re strategically aligning it with both human expertise and deep customer insight. By leveraging AI’s ability to “remember”, brands can now leverage contextual data for seamless continuity, ensuring every customer interaction, whether with an AI agent or human, feels connected, relevant, and highly personalised.”
Bede Hackney, Head of ANZ, Zoom
“For SMEs, empathy built on understanding what customers need and how they feel is key to standing out. But with limited time and resources, it’s not always easy. That’s where AI can help. Smart, easy-to-use tools can analyse conversations across phone, chat, email and other channels. They help drive better productivity and understanding. Even more importantly, these tools can free up time for your team to invest in the conversations and empathy that gives your customer service real impact.
“AI tools within Zoom’s Contact Center and Revenue Accelerator can flag sentiment from an upset customer and suggest follow-up actions based on the conversation. This helps uncover what’s driving customer contact in real time, so you can improve response handling, personalise interactions, and act more quickly. Your training and enablement becomes much better linked to real customer interactions.
“You don’t need complex systems to get started, just the right tools that help you listen better and respond more effectively. Whether you’re online, local, or growing fast, AI makes it easier to connect with customers and keep them coming back.”
Shaun Broughton, Managing Director, APAC and Japan at Shopify
“AI delivers its most valuable insights when it is embedded in a retailer’s commerce platform and fuelled by real-time, first-party data. When sales, marketing and inventory are tightly integrated in an intelligent platform, an SME can move beyond static reports and ask questions like ‘why have cart abandonments risen this week?’ or ‘identify the customers most likely to reorder next month?’, receiving actionable insights with a few clicks of a button. Teams bypass stale spreadsheets, siloed AI apps and expensive analysts, moving from data to decision in minutes.
“Consider Australian fashion brand Blue Bungalow. During Cyclone Alfred, the team needed to quickly understand how their sales were impacted in specific postcodes. Instead of wrestling with CSVs, filters and separate AI tools, they asked Sidekick, Shopify’s AI commerce assistant, and had the exact figures within minutes. Ultimately, by prioritising unified software and choosing platforms which integrate AI into their very system, teams can turn raw data into timely, strategic action.”
Elise Balsillie, Head of Thryv Australia and New Zealand
“AI opens the door for SMEs to understand what makes their customers tick with a more accurate lens. It helps move beyond guesswork and gut feel, to decisions shaped by real-time data, patterns and preferences.
“AI-powered tools can also analyse purchase history, engagement trends and sentiment from reviews or social media, in order for services, marketing and communication to be tailored with precision and accuracy. It also means knowing which customers are more likely to return to your business, who may need a nudge and what offer will resonate with them – minus the additional hours of manual effort.
“For example, a pet groomer could use AI to predict when customers are likely to book their next appointment based on breed, season and past visits, then send a friendly reminder before owners even think to call. These smarter insights turn everyday interactions into opportunities to build loyalty and stay one step ahead of customer needs (and wants).
“SMEs should use AI as a silent and effective partner that helps create more personal, responsive and lasting customer relationships, unlocking invaluable insights that were once out of reach.”
Paul Rilstone, Vice President ANZ, KoreAI
“Subject matter experts can leverage AI to gain deeper insights into their customers by utilising an orchestration data layer combined with aggregate tooling. An orchestration data layer acts as a centralised system that unifies data from multiple sources – CRM systems, support tickets, real-time feeds, or purchase history – into a cohesive, real-time view. This technology allows AI tools to analyse and interpret large volumes of customer data quickly, identifying patterns, preferences, and potential pain points.
“By integrating aggregate tooling, organisations can create a single view of the customer, automation, workflows and scripting to provide agents and experts with immediate access to a holistic profile. AI can then surface predictive insights, such as likely churn risk, intent signals, or personalised product recommendations. This empowers call centre agents to have more meaningful, proactive conversations and enables subject matter experts to tailor solutions based on a deep understanding of an individual.
“In real-time scenarios, AI can suggest next-best actions, sentiment analysis, and relevant knowledge base articles, streamlining the support process. Ultimately, this approach not only improves customer satisfaction but also enhances efficiency, allowing teams to focus on delivering value rather than searching for fragmented data across multiple platforms.”
Kyle Willersdorf, Account Director, Australia and New Zealand at GoCardless
“AI is transforming how SMEs understand customers by turning complex data masses into customer-specific insights previously only available to large enterprises.
“The payments industry is a prime example. Traditional approaches treat all customers identically when payments fail, creating poor, impersonal experiences and low recovery rates.
“AI can now be used to analyse patterns across millions of transactions to predict when individual customers are most likely to have funds available, working around individuals’ financial schedules and benefiting both parties without probing into their personal circumstances.
“Companies using intelligent systems can recover around 70% of failed payments compared to the industry average of 38%. For example, fintech Plum reduced payment failures from 3.6% to 0.48% in three months using GoCardless’s AI-powered retry system Success+.
“The key is moving beyond generic, one-size-fits-all approaches. AI helps identify optimal timing, messaging, and methods for each customer relationship without encroaching on privacy or increasing admin loads. It increases efficiency and reduces overall business costs.
“SMEs that embrace AI-driven customer insights will build stronger relationships, reduce costs, and create competitive advantages previously not available to them.”
Jessica Meher, SVP, Marketing at Loop
“Most SMEs think they need huge datasets to make AI work for them, but we’ve found that’s not the case. The returns data that ecommerce businesses already collect contains incredibly valuable customer insights that most merchants aren’t tapping into.
“At Loop, when we analyse customer comments from returns, we can identify patterns that tell us which shoppers had positive experiences and are more likely to repurchase, versus those who had negative experiences and might need extra attention to rebuild trust. This kind of sentiment analysis helps merchants focus their team’s time and energy where they’ll have the biggest impact on customer retention.
“What we’re seeing is that AI doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive to deliver real business value. It can work in the background, learning from existing operations to help merchants make better decisions about everything from return policies to customer service priorities. For SMEs, that operational efficiency can make the difference between struggling with manual processes and having time to actually grow the business.”
Brendan Straw, Country Manager for Australia, Shopfully
“AI does not need to be complex or expensive to make a real difference for small and medium-sized businesses. Whether it is analysing foot traffic patterns or uncovering local shopping behaviour, AI can help SMEs make smarter decisions based on the data they already have. Tools that surface customer trends, such as what is driving in-store visits or how promotions are performing, give SMEs access to insights that were once only available to larger retailers. With the right tools and mindset, AI becomes less about buzzwords and more about understanding customers and delivering better experiences.”
Brenton Hodder, Executive Director, Microsoft Practice at NCS Australia
“Today’s data-driven economy pushes businesses to invest in AI for automation and customer insights. While resources differ, small businesses have much they can learn from their bigger counterparts, helping them leverage data assets and build stronger customer relationships.
“Good data is essential for any AI strategy, and it tells a story if you’re willing to listen. Ensuring you have tools to track the key metrics necessary to understand your customers – contact data, transactions, preferences, and satisfaction metrics, for example, all help build the foundation for an AI-powered customer program. As AI becomes more accessible, more businesses can use data like this to more easily gain real-time insights, identify trends, anticipate needs, and adjust offerings quickly to meet customers’ needs.
“AI speeds up data analysis, helping leaders make informed decisions faster. These insights and feedback can lead to more personalised experiences and enhanced relationships. SMEs should choose AI solutions that fit their budgets, objectives, and operations that are designed ethically and tailored to their environments.
“For SMEs aiming to refine their customer strategies, investing in powerful and purpose-built AI will help them remain competitive in an evolving business landscape.”
Ritchie Cotton, Co-Founder & CEO, Valiant Finance
“For most SMEs today, AI’s immediate value lies in reducing administrative burden rather than analysing customer data. Business owners need to focus on what drives their success like building the house, laying the road, running dinner service, or designing clothing lines, not managing paperwork.
“AI excels at automating documentation, content creation, recruitment processes, and compliance tasks that traditionally consume valuable time. At Valiant for example, our team wants to spend their day talking to customers, not copying data between systems. AI removes this friction, enabling faster response times and more personalised service.
“For SMEs to eventually gain meaningful customer insights through AI, they first need digitised operations capturing data properly. This creates a foundation for future analysis, but it’s a longer-term play that happens concurrently with immediate productivity gains.
“The real opportunity today is AI-enabled services that streamline business processes like new customer applications, website building, or customer communications. These help SMEs operate with leaner teams while accessing capabilities previously reserved for larger corporations.
“Customer insight analysis will follow naturally as businesses become more digitally optimised, but the immediate focus should be on practical applications that free up human capacity for core business activities.”
Renée Chaplin, VP – Asia Pacific, Constant Contact
“Australian small businesses are currently navigating a tough economic climate and a constantly-changing digital landscape. And yet, most SMEs overlook their most powerful asset – customer data.
“Customer data can help future-proof a business and allow SMEs to compete against the big guys – but they often don’t have the time, resources or expertise to leverage these important insights to support better business decision-making.
“The acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing this narrative and now makes mining this data easier, more cost-effective and faster than it’s ever been.
“A key aspect of mining the data is to develop deeper insights into the customer base to make marketing more effective, driving ROI up and Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) down.
“Once an outsourced customer/market research activity costing tens of thousands or requiring a large marketing/analytics team, is now attainable for SMEs with little investment in time and resources.
“The right AI-driven marketing tech stack can take much of the heavy lifting off the shoulders of the busy business owner. It can help a business analyse who their customers are, what channels are driving the most engagement, when touchpoints are most effective and whether certain campaigns led to sales and even in what timeframe – all in a matter of clicks.
“Importantly, it can step in to automate aspects of the marketing function that allows them to work on more high value initiatives/activities. AI can help on the marketing front with content and image creation, multichannel campaign planning and scheduling, automating touch points triggered by customer behaviours and actions, sending emails with subject lines that are more likely to resonate with your audience and so much more.
“The marketing landscape is also in the midst of rapid change due to AI. It was revealed recently that there has been an overall drop of 15–64 per cent in organic traffic due to AI-overview-rich results appearing atop SERPs, reducing the need to visit sites and drastically impacting inbound leads.
“It’s therefore more important than ever for SMEs to invest in the marketing channels that are delivering the most success and then make every engagement touch point count. If SMEs are going to develop and maintain a competitive edge, they need to understand and get closer to their customer by leveraging customer data insights with the help of AI.”
Sarah Richardson, General Manager at Australian Loyalty Association
“Customers today expect brands to know them, but for many SMEs, particularly in retail and hospitality, delivering on that expectation remains a major challenge.
“AI is undoubtedly a powerful agent of change in the loyalty ecosystem as it evolves to accelerate processes and customer experience outcomes, strengthen personalisation and shape wider strategic decision-making. As AI tools become more sophisticated, the pressure is on loyalty leaders to stay informed about technology advancements to maintain their competitive edge.
“According to our research at the Australian Loyalty Association, 46 percent of members expect brands to know their preferences (implying a gap between expectation and delivery) and 58 percent are happy to share their data in exchange for more relevant offers. Yet, more than half are concerned about the volume of data loyalty programs hold.
“Personalised AI agents available for high-value loyalty members is significantly enhancing the experience within programs. Having an agent that can answer all your queries with relation to your membership as well as past purchase information allows SMEs to tap into deep customer insights. If you are in the enviable position to develop these capabilities early on, businesses with loyalty programs will be well placed for success.
“The future of retail AI, personalisation and customer loyalty are the major topics of industry discussion and debate at the upcoming 2025 Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference in July, bringing 30 expert speakers from global loyalty innovators, retail strategists and customer experience specialists across the two-day event.”
Jonathan Reeve, Vice President, APAC at Eagle Eye
“AI agents are becoming embedded in our everyday life. Google’s Gemini helps plan your week, while OpenAI’s voice assistants manage tasks through natural conversation. A wave of startups and innovators are already building AI agent solutions for specific business needs, using foundation models from leading providers. In addition to being able to ask questions, AI agent helpers can make decisions, compare prices and steer customers to where to shop.
“This stands to change how retailers reach customers. As AI agents mediate interactions, retailers won’t just sell to customers, they’ll negotiate with algorithms. Simplicity and genuine value will be rewarded, while complexity and trickery will be filtered out.
“The wave of AI agents means customer experience expectations will further rise, placing pressure on SMEs to lean into their customer data and insights. At Eagle Eye, we strongly believe the future of loyalty lies in personalisation powered by real-time intelligence. Our AI- driven personalisation engine already helps retailers predict customer behaviour and tailor experiences at scale. For SMEs, this means using AI to process customer data more effectively, uncover hidden trends, and deliver meaningful value at every touchpoint.
“As the relationship between AI and loyalty deepens, the most successful retailers will be those who learn to speak to both customers and the agents that guide them.”
Sara Faatz, Senior Director, Strategic Brand Awareness, Digital Experience, Progress Software
“Marketing analytics is undergoing a fundamental shift as AI moves us from reactive reporting to predictive intelligence, and there is a great opportunity for SMEs to tap into this predictive era to gain better, deeper insights into their customers.
“Modern marketing demands more than simple demographic segmentation. Success requires understanding and responding to individual customer behaviors and preferences in real time. This is where AI-powered analytics truly shines.
“Thanks to AI, raw data can become actionable intelligence. For example, when a customer visits your website, AI algorithms can analyse their behavior patterns, content preferences and interaction history. This analysis drives real-time decisions about which content to display, which offers to present and how to optimise the conversion path.
“Successfully implementing AI-powered analytics requires more than just selecting the right technology. SMEs looking to use AI to gain deeper insights into their customers need clean data, clear objectives and a commitment to data-driven decision making. The most successful implementations usually start with a specific use case, and then expand based on demonstrated results.”
Carla Penn-Kahn, CEO and Co-Founder, Profit Peak
“Small to mid-sized businesses (especially Shopify brands) can now use AI to scale faster and more intelligently, without needing a full team of analysts. With modern AI tools, it’s possible to interact directly with your data in real time and uncover insights that would normally take hours to find.
“Curious about which products are trending or about to sell out? Just ask. Want to know which ad campaigns are driving the most profitable growth so you can scale with confidence? It takes seconds.
“AI can also detect when ad campaigns begin to show signs of diminishing returns, prompting timely budget adjustments to protect margins. On the creative front, it can identify when Meta ads are losing effectiveness, helping you refresh content before performance declines. Instead of relying on delayed reports, AI empowers you to respond to real-time trends, improve cash flow, and make smarter marketing decisions every day.
“As AI becomes a core part of the ecommerce tech stack, the ability to use it effectively is becoming a critical responsibility. It is especially valuable in supporting revenue operations and enabling customer success teams to make faster, more insight-driven decision.”
Peter Curran, Founder & Business Development Manager, Digital Surfer
“What SMEs need to remember about AI is it’s not just about generative tools, like ChatGPT. There’s an area of AI called machine learning that nearly every good marketing analytics platform will now use, which takes data and breaks it all down so you’re only getting the info that matters, like consumer forecasting, potential opportunities, competitor gaps, etc.
“Like any new technology though there are a few downsides for SMEs. You need to remember these are platforms you need to learn to use. A lot of them market themselves as a ‘plug in your website URL and go’ or ‘turn on an ad and it does the rest’, but if you’re doing that, you’re not going to be getting enough from them to actually compete with the big players who are really tapping into their full capabilities.
“Our recommendation based on our 10+ years working with businesses and the countless hours our team have invested of their own time into learning these platforms is to weigh up your time versus cost investment. If you don’t have the time to learn them and do it yourself, look at investing in someone who can apply it to your marketing strategy for you. Because, if you’re not, everyone else is and you’re unfortunately going to be left behind.”
Leanne Bawden, Business Coach | CEO, Wildly Grounded Co
“As a business strategist and a mum of four, I don’t have the luxury of trial and error. I use AI to shortcut the noise and make smarter, faster decisions.
“SMEs can leverage AI to gain deep, actionable insight into customer behaviour. Not just who’s buying, but why, when and what language converts. I teach my clients (many of them mums in business too) how to feed their content, sales data and customer feedback into AI tools like ChatGPT or even AI-driven email insights to uncover patterns they’d never spot manually.
“We’re talking voice of customer data at scale. Automated tagging of pain points. Language that actually lands. Real conversion triggers pulled straight from their own audience data.
“This isn’t about replacing human connection. It’s about removing the manual guesswork so we can show up sharper, more relevant and more profitable in part time hours.
“If you’re not using AI to translate raw data into strategic moves, you’re missing the fastest path to deeper customer alignment, stronger messaging and sustainable growth.
“Time poor business owners don’t need more effort, they need better insight.”
Maria Kathopoulis, CEO & Chief Marketing Officer at UNTMD Media
“SMEs can harness AI to gain deeper insights into their customers by analyzing data to uncover patterns in behavior, segment audiences, and forecast trends. For example, AI can identify which products resonate with specific demographics, the optimal times to engage customers, or which channels convert best. Traditional AI tools require SMEs to manually interpret insights and act on them, making the process effective but more hands-on.
“Agentic AI takes this further, operating with a degree of autonomy. It not only surfaces insights but also recommends and executes actions based on those insights, adapting in real-time. This shifts AI from a passive tool to an active growth partner, enabling SMEs to respond faster, personalise experiences at scale, and test strategies without constant oversight.”
Karim Rayes, Chief Product Officer at Nexxen
“We’ve seen a massive industry shift from exclusively transacting on media to instead focusing more on audiences, how best to understand target consumers and reaching these people holistically.
“The power of AI is fundamentally elevating every stage of the advertising life cycle. At Nexxen, our nexAI Discovery assistant takes a transparent approach to planning and activation as well as optimization and monetisation, continuously iterating and improving to deliver greater efficiency.
“AI assistants like nexAI allow brands to quickly convert complex consumer data into clear, actionable audience profiles and strategic campaign plans with direct activation capabilities. The generative AI features enable Nexxen’s customers to access behavioural data and analytical capabilities without the need for expert analysts or managing multiple platform logins. It also provides direct linkage between generated insights and activation strategies, facilitating seamless execution across Nexxen’s platform.
“Our AI tools help to remove friction from the entire workflow, enabling SMEs in the advertising and publishing space to move from insights to activation faster, smarter and with greater confidence.”
Teresa Sperti, Founder and Director at Arktic Fox
“AI has flooded the headlines across the globe, but the latest 2025 Digital, Marketing & eComm in Focus report by Arktic Fox, in partnership with Six Degrees Executive, reveals a more realistic picture.
“Whilst 86 percent of Australian brands are leveraging AI for content at various stages of maturity, most Australian brands are still grappling with how to unlock AI’s full potential. It’s crucial to understand that AI is only as good as the data it leverages. Without strong data foundations, efforts to use AI for customer personalisation and experience delivery will fall short. So, if only 14 percent say they have a unified customer view and more than half admit to lagging in first-party data capability, there’s much to be done before brands can scale with AI to leverage its true value for experience delivery.
“The opportunity for growth in the AI space remains considerable. Currently, more advanced levels of AI adoption are typically reserved to larger companies. But, that doesn’t mean SMEs can’t scale with AI. Investing in the right tools, data foundations and up-skilling teams to harness the power of AI will position brands in good stead for future success.”
Martin Herbst, CEO, JobAdder
“SMEs face a growing challenge: understanding customers deeply while managing increasing data volumes.
“Businesses often lose prospects not from a lack of insight, but because manual processes cause delays and impersonal experiences. AI is great at organising information, but insight comes from human relationships, which is why a hybrid approach works best.
“Start with existing touchpoints: communication history, support interactions, and engagement patterns. AI can surface insights about customer preferences and outreach timing without needing complex systems. When admin is delegated to tech, teams can focus on conversations that matter most.
“In recruitment, we’ve tackled this exact problem: recruiters now handle 42% more applications but struggle to maintain personal connections, according to our latest research.
“At JobAdder, our AI strategy focuses on augmenting tasks so people can prioritise relationship-building and strategic decisions.
“When we automated routine tasks like data cleanup and follow-ups, recruiters didn’t just gain time-they improved interaction quality and prevented talent from being overlooked. That translates directly to stronger customer relationships and deeper insight.
“The key is choosing AI that fits existing workflows. This gives SMEs the analytical power of larger enterprises while preserving the personal touch that drives success.
“Choose tools that support your team, free them up to be more human, and deeper insights will follow.”
Billy Loizou, Area Vice President, APAC at Amperity
“AI is no longer just a supporting player in customer data strategies. It has become the driving force behind how many businesses collect, analyse and act on customer insights. With AI- powered tools enabling real-time data processing, hyper-personalisation, and predictive analytics, brands can create experiences that not only meet but anticipate customer needs.
“Once challenging and out of reach for most brands, access to true personalisation at scale is changing. SMEs can use AI to streamline email marketing by instantly converting customer preferences into personalised content, automatically generating tailored emails with relevant products and messaging based on each customer’s interests and purchase history.
“But AI is only as good as the data behind it. Brands can no longer rely on fragmented systems and basic segmentation tactics. They need intelligent, unified platforms that maximise AI’s capabilities for deeper insights and real-time decision-making.
“Amperity’s Identity Resolution Agent tackles the messiest data problem by taking on the complex, time-consuming process of data stitching. Tasks that once required months of complex engineering work can now be completed in hours – quickly connecting fragmented customer identities into accurate, unified profiles.
“Brands investing in robust customer data infrastructure will position themselves for success by consistently delivering experiences that resonate deeply with customers.”
John Harding, General Manager – Managed Services, Konica Minolta Australia
“Gaining deeper customer insights is essential for SMEs looking to grow and compete effectively in today’s fast-paced environment. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers practical, scalable ways to uncover behaviours, preferences, and pain points, turning data into smarter decisions and stronger relationships.
“AI-powered customer data platforms help SMEs integrate insights across sales, marketing, and service channels, building a more connected and accurate view of each customer’s journey. The right tools move businesses move from reactive interactions to proactive, personalised engagement.
“There are two key ways AI delivers value:
- Machine learning (ML) identifies purchasing patterns, predicts behaviour, and forecasts future needs, enabling targeted campaigns that feel timely and relevant.
- Natural language processing (NLP) analyses sentiment in emails, reviews, and social media to reveal recurring feedback and guide service improvements.
“Konica Minolta sees SMEs adopting these capabilities through accessible AI tools that align with their size and business goals, not enterprise-scale systems. The focus is on solving real challenges like improving response times, refining communication, and uncovering growth opportunities.
“Importantly, the most effective AI doesn’t replace people; it empowers them. That means faster insights, clearer customer understanding, and greater confidence in every decision for SMEs, helping teams thrive in a customer-driven market.”
Richard Taylor, Managing Director, Digital Balance
“As an SME, you likely know what your customers do on your website – how many visits, what they buy, where they drop off – but do you know why? Uncovering this intent is the key to real growth, and AI-powered tools are making it possible.
“Digital experience analytics platforms are at the forefront of this, moving beyond traditional analytics into behavioural analysis. Their technology allows a business to visualise exactly how customers navigate their website and app. It’s not just about clicks; it’s about seeing every scroll, hesitation, and moment of frustration or delight.
“The real power lies in the AI engine. Instead of you manually reviewing thousands of user sessions, the AI automatically surfaces critical insights. It can instantly identify ‘rage clicks’ on a broken button or highlight the seamless journey of a customer who converted, revealing the path of least resistance. It answers questions like: ‘What content do converting customers engage with most?’ or ‘Where exactly in the checkout process is causing friction?’
“By using AI to analyse the digital body language of your customers, you can stop making assumptions. You gain trusted, actionable insights to improve your website, drive conversions, and build an online experience that customers genuinely appreciate.”
Ben Wright, Chief Commercial Officer, IcanaAI
“Great frontline AI execution has evolved from a focus on business cost cutting and efficiency gains to the development of team skills for greater Customer experiences. The implementation of AI SaaS products that can measure team performance on every call, and provide coaching from this analysis, is allowing businesses to deploy more specific Customer focused programs. As these programs are rolled out to their Customers, the 100% call coverage is providing clear insights into if the go to market strategies are engaging with Customers, and if not, where the gaps lie.
“The most advanced AI tools (Icana.AI’s CallCoach for example), are measuring both what is said within conversations as well as how it is communicated – including tone of voice, pacing and empathy levels. The end result for businesses is real time Customer engagement sentiments as well as team performance measurement, gaps and improvement opportunities. And of course, happier Customers.”
Jim Schuman, CEO, First Pivot
“In India, savvy bankers could predict a wedding simply by spotting a cash withdrawal for gold purchases. This single transaction unlocked a roadmap of life events—marriage, home buying, family planning, education savings. The banker knew exactly which products to offer at each stage, creating deeper relationships and better outcomes.
“But this only worked for bankers who personally knew their customers. It didn’t scale.
“Now small businesses can have this same predictive insight across hundreds or thousands of customers. AI can spot the “gold purchase moments”—those subtle signals that reveal where customers are in their journey. An education company might detect when schools mention “student engagement challenges” or receive innovation funding. A fitness business could identify when clients book family sessions versus individual training.
“AI maps these patterns to predict what comes next, automatically surfacing the right solutions at the perfect moment. You’re no longer guessing what customers need—you’re anticipating their journey with the precision of that Indian banker, but at scale.
“The result? Deeper relationships, better timing, and customers who feel truly understood rather than sold to.”
Grace Savage, Brand & AI Strategist, Tradie Agency
“Firstly, start with clean, structured data.
“Gather and organise your customer information in a CRM – include relevant information such as purchase history, location, gender, age, spend, and interactions (like support chats or FAQs).
“Next, use AI to spot the patterns.
“Ask questions like:
- What do my top customers have in common?
- Which suburbs generate the most sales?
- What age group is buying which product?
- Where do leads drop off in our funnel?
“Feed that data into AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT with a spreadsheet) and request summaries, top recurring traits, and segment insights. Visualise it in a dashboard or chart to reveal your high-value customer profiles.
“Then act on it. Use those insights to tweak your marketing, pricing, and offers. For example, if most repeat buyers are women aged 30–45 in three specific suburbs, your ads and copy should speak directly to them.
“AI doesn’t just analyse – it helps you focus. And the better your data, the sharper your next move.”
Michael Haynes, SME Business Growth Specialist, Listen Innovate Grow
“For small and medium B2B firms—particularly in sectors like Accounting and Technology—AI can be a powerful tool to better understand your clients and their needs. Today’s decision-makers are buying differently. They expect providers to deeply understand their industry, challenges, and what’s driving change in their world.
“AI helps by rapidly analysing large volumes of data—from industry reports, news articles, client feedback, and even competitor activity—to uncover valuable insights. These might include emerging trends, evolving client priorities, new opportunities, gaps in the market as well as understanding the ecosystem in which your clients operate which is now critical to client acquisition and business growth.
“By using AI to gather and interpret this information, your firm can anticipate client needs, tailor your advice, and position your company as they expert advisor and partner they seek. This depth of understanding builds credibility and trust—key drivers in B2B purchasing decisions.
“In short, AI gives you the intelligence to be more relevant, proactive, and valuable to your clients—helping you stand out in a competitive market.”
Alexandra Egan, CEO/Founder, The Domino Effect Consulting & Facilitating
“SMEs, WAKE UP AI isn’t coming for your jobs. It’s coming for your blind spots.
“Still using AI to write captions and automate bookings? Meanwhile…
- Call centres are eliminating 80% of wasted calls using AI that listens, sorts, and solves…instantly
- Retailers are using AI to detect customer frustration in real time, before a word is even spoken
- Clinics and support services are trialling AI to triage messages, translate in real time, and flag emotional distress
“This isn’t sci-fi. It’s now and affordable. So, what can SMEs do with AI right now?
- Stop wasting time on the wrong calls
Use AI to pre-screen and route enquiries, so your team only handles what really matters. - Spot silent churn before it happens
Analyse tone, timing, and behaviour in messages or calls to flag when a loyal customer is quietly slipping away. - Speak every customer’s language instantly
Use real-time translation tools to respond across languages, markets, and accessibility needs without extra staff. - Prioritise leads by potential, not just noise
AI can score and rank incoming leads based on historical patterns and predicted lifetime value so you focus effort where it counts.
“You don’t need a data team to know what customers want. You don’t need a CRM overhaul…you just need better questions.
“R.E.S.E.T. Your Thinking®
Don’t ask: ‘Can AI make this faster or cheaper?’
Start asking: “What insights am I blind to that AI can already reveal?’
“Your customer patterns are there.
AAI sees them. You just haven’t asked it the right way, YET….”
Kate Massey, General Manager, APAC, Athos Commerce
“Small and medium-sized enterprises don’t need large budgets or in-house data teams to benefit from AI. Today’s AI-driven tools can help lean teams transform everyday interactions into actionable insights – particularly in the areas of website personalisation and merchandising.
“Start with what you already have for your ecommerce site: search queries, product views, click behaviour, and purchase history. AI can analyse this data to uncover intent signals, identify friction points, and flag opportunities such as gaps in size curves or trending product attributes.
“AI also powers dynamic personalisation and automated merchandising. By learning what individual shoppers are most likely to buy – or ignore – retailers can optimise product ranking, tailor recommendations, and adapt on-site experiences in real time.
“The key is to start small. Choose one area – such as product discovery, campaign targeting, search relevance, product grid order, or shopper loyalty – and use AI to improve it. Let those quick wins build confidence and momentum before scaling more broadly.
“By making AI practical, phased, and insight-driven, SMEs can deliver more relevant experiences, deepen customer understanding, and stay competitive in an ever-evolving retail landscape.”
Mohan Jesudason, CEO, X2M Connect
“AI is no longer a ‘nice to have’ for SMEs, it’s a competitive necessity. At X2M Connect, we use AI to bridge critical information gaps between utility and energy providers and their customers. The key? Turning raw operational data into customer insight.
“For SMEs, AI’s greatest strength lies in pattern recognition, helping uncover what customers need before they ask for it. Whether it’s identifying usage trends, flagging anomalies in behaviour, or predicting churn risk, AI enables tailored service at scale.
“For example, by analysing data from smart meters, AI can alert customers to unusual usage patterns, like a water leak, before they receive a bill shock.
“The greatest strength of AI is in identifying patterns humans might miss, highlighting which customers are at risk of churning, which products are performing best by region, or what time of day your users are most active.
“And you don’t need deep tech expertise or big budgets to get started. Off-the-shelf AI tools can integrate into existing platforms, offering dashboards and predictive analytics that drive smarter decisions.
“By automating analysis, AI frees up SMEs to focus on action: refining offerings, targeting communications, and ultimately building stronger relationships with their customers.”
Sangeeta Mudnal, Chief Technology Officer at GluAI
“AI has levelled the playing field between the enterprise giants and smaller businesses. It’s a transformative tool SMEs can now access to deeply understand and serve their customers.
“AI-powered assistants from Google, Meta and Perplexity are redefining how consumers engage with brands, creating an entirely new canvas for creative expression. These developments aren’t merely technical innovations but rather a fundamental reimagining of the creative producer’s role.
“AI solutions like Glu.ai help e-commerce merchants to build the creative muscles and operational frameworks quickly and at scale. While other creative producers are still struggling with platform-specific formatting and technical SEO optimization, you’ll be crafting distinctive brand voices that flourish in conversation, effortlessly reaching customers across platforms.
“AI platforms like Glu showcase a deep commitment to customer-centric innovation, enabling users to unlock deeper customer insights. You can organise digital assets with automatic tagging, generate tailored content suggestions and automate time-consuming tasks like bulk cropping and resizing. This provides the operational efficiency you need to experiment with emerging AI channels and tap into customer preferences.
“The key is starting small with AI and using solutions that can integrate with workflows. The insights you unlock can help you serve smarter and connect deeper with your customers.
“For SMEs, that’s a sharp competitive edge.”
John-Daniel Trask, CEO, Autohive
“Only 35% of Aussie SMBs are adopting AI, 23% are not aware of how to use it, and 42% are not planning on adopting it, despite the fact that 91 percent of SMBs that use AI say it boosts their revenue. One of its biggest benefits is how it enables SMBs to track, understand and engage with customers. For example, AI agents allow you to handle customer inquiries 24/7 with automated smart response systems, and create personalised follow-ups based on customer history. The knock on effect this can have is huge: improved revenue, order increases, improved conversion, and better customer reviews to name a few. Using AI to understand customers is no longer a nice to have, it’s a business imperative and key competitive advantage.”
David Memmoli, CEO, Another Way Business
“Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to gain deeper insights into their customers by automating data collection, analyzing patterns in customer behavior, and predicting future needs. AI-powered tools such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems with machine learning algorithms can track interactions across channels—email, social media, website visits—and identify trends in preferences or pain points. Natural language processing (NLP) can analyze customer feedback from surveys, reviews, and chat transcripts to uncover sentiment and emerging issues. SMEs can also use AI to segment their customer base more precisely, enabling personalized marketing campaigns that increase engagement and retention. Predictive analytics further help forecast buying behaviors, enabling businesses to proactively tailor offers or adjust inventory. These AI capabilities, once limited to large enterprises, are now accessible through affordable SaaS platforms, allowing SMEs to make data-driven decisions with greater accuracy and efficiency.
“AI gives SMEs powerful tools to understand, predict, and serve their customers more intelligently.”
Ged Mansour, Director, Same Wave Communications
“Put yourself in your customers’ shoes (or at their keyboards) to find out more about what they’re finding out about you.
“Ask your chosen generative AI tool some questions about your company and the problems you help customers solve. Ask the questions in a free-flowing way like you would talk in a casual conversation. For example, you can ask, ‘Who is the best value XXXX company in Australia?’ Follow this up with, ‘But why do they cost more than competitors?’ ‘Do they have good reviews’ ‘What is a cheaper alternative?’ And so on, making it relevant to your offering and your customers.
“By having a natural, conversational search with AI and bantering back and forth like you would with a colleague, you’ll get some great insights into what customers are finding about you and also where they’re finding it. This can help you understand potential gaps in their knowledge based on their conversational search patterns.
“I’ve also recently seen companies get a surprise at the sources being used in AI search results, so you can use this exercise as part of a refresh of your communication and content approach.”
Michael Russell, Managing Director at Finwave Finance
“AI is no longer just being used in big tech, small businesses are now using it to get closer to their customers. At Finwave Finance, we use AI to analyse behaviour across our website visits, form submissions, and even loan outcome data, helping us understand what customers need before they tell us.
“For example, AI tools can cluster customer segments based on browsing patterns, predict the likelihood of conversion, or even flag when a returning visitor may be ready to refinance. For SMEs, this means smarter marketing, more personalised service, and faster sales cycles.
“The key is to start small: platforms like ChatGPT or affordable CRM tools with built-in AI can automate insights without the need for a data team. It’s not about replacing human judgment, it’s about augmenting it with real-time signals that lead to better decisions.
“AI won’t just tell you who your customers are. It will help you serve them like never before.”
Andy Nicholas, Vice President for APAC, WorkJam
“For small and medium enterprises across retail, hospitality, sporting venues and the like, the frontline workforce is often the face of the brand — the first to engage customers and the first to sense shifts in behaviour. Yet these teams are frequently underserved by AI innovation. That’s changing with the emergence of agentic AI: intelligent systems that not only surface information but act on it autonomously to drive better decisions and outcomes.
“By integrating AI into digital frontline platforms, SMEs can equip their staff with tools that go beyond task management — enabling real-time insights, contextual prompts, and predictive actions. For example, AI can alert staff to changing customer patterns, trigger replenishment tasks, or recommend training modules based on real-time performance. These aren’t just back-office insights; they’re operational enhancements delivered directly where they’re needed.
“Platforms like WorkJam are leading this shift, embedding agentic AI into everyday workflows. The result is a smarter, faster, more empowered frontline — one that can anticipate needs, adapt to customer demands, and resolve issues without delay.
“For SMEs, the opportunity is clear: AI doesn’t just offer insights about customers; it unlocks the full potential of the people serving them.”
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