Bridging the AI Confidence Gap: Turning Interest into Action

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly evolved from a technological curiosity to a necessity that drives growth for businesses like yours. It is a practical tool for solving real business problems, from saving time to driving more revenue. The digital marketing industry has been aware of AI’s potential for a long time now. However, AI confidence is taking longer to establish itself in other sectors.

If you’re not sure how AI fits into your operations or marketing, you’re not alone, but waiting too long puts your growth at risk. How can we build confidence, and how can we turn confidence into an actionable AI business strategy?

WSI’s 2025 AI Business Insights Report

To understand the evolution of AI for small businesses, WSI conducted a survey encompassing over 600 business leaders worldwide. The majority of these leaders (90.2%) are involved in small or medium businesses. The survey’s results form the core of the 2025 WSI AI Business Insights Report. We surveyed in multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The results reveal a growing awareness of AI, with more teams outside of leadership and marketing adopting it. However, it appears that this adoption has yet to be formalized on a wide scale. Adoption remains inconsistent, as does the transfer of knowledge and training between departments.

The 2025 WSI AI Report has three main takeaways. They are:

1. Many businesses recognize the importance of AI, but they have not yet established action plans to integrate it into their workflows. They are certainly not allocating any significant portion of their budget to it. Confidence is growing, but action plans and budgets have not caught up.
2. Businesses and individuals are quickly becoming familiar with AI, but formal training still lags.
3. Whereas AI adoption was once confined to company leadership, this is no longer the case. AI is now being used across departments—from operations to sales. However, progress is still slow in this regard, as silos form within business structures, preventing widespread adoption. If you’re not enabling your teams with AI, you're missing out on performance gains in all parts of your business.

In the coming months, we will focus on each of these takeaways in turn, sharing our insights and perspectives. In this article, we turn the spotlight onto the first one.

TAKEAWAY #1: AI Confidence is Growing: But Action Plans (and Budgets) Haven’t Caught Up

The survey revealed an impressive upturn in enthusiasm for AI among business leaders. Eighty-one per cent of respondents said they believed AI could help them achieve their business goals (a nine-percentage-point increase over the previous year). 

While this is certainly promising for the prospects of AI and the businesses that choose to utilize it, most companies are moving too slowly with implementation. They still don’t have a plan or budget to implement the technology. That gap is a setback for their business’s growth—and it could be for yours as well. If you fail to act now, you risk falling behind more agile competitors.

In marked contrast to the 81% of respondents who expressed enthusiasm about AI, only 27% reported currently engaging in serious conversations about implementing it across their companies. This is also an increase over 2024 (the result was 20% in that year), but not by a significant amount. Business leaders understand that AI can help their organizations grow (in fact, 83% of business owners and founders say they're confident in AI's potential). Still, without urgency or a clear and detailed view of the projected ROI, they’re delaying action. That delay is giving early adopters a significant competitive edge.

So what’s holding these businesses back from taking action? If your company is among those still hesitating, identifying the roadblocks is the first step in building your AI strategy. As was the case with last year’s survey, 35% of respondents say they don’t have the time to conduct a thorough evaluation of AI’s pros and cons. Many businesses view AI as valuable but haven’t clearly defined its roles, such as in automated lead nurturing, enhanced sales efficiency, or improved forecasting. Without a clear view of what kind of ROI to expect, it’s easy to put off AI investment. But the longer you wait, the more ground you lose to competitors who are already seeing returns.

While this reluctance is understandable, it is also harming these businesses’ ability to compete. The problem, from their perspective, is that many other businesses are prioritizing the adoption of AI. These early adopters are outpacing their more cautious competitors. In addition to integrating AI solutions from scratch, the slow adopters will also have to work harder to close that gap.

From Insight to Action: What Businesses Should Do Next

Now that so many businesses have developed sufficient confidence in AI, and their less hesitant competitors are already running ahead, the pressure is on to take decisive steps. But, as we have already noted, most businesses don’t know how to do that. Theoretical confidence is not translating into a specific, actionable strategy. Leaders understand the importance of AI, but they often struggle to plan and implement its effective inclusion in their businesses.

At WSI, although we urge businesses to overcome this temporary inaction, we also understand that business leaders want to give the matter serious thought before signing off on new budgets and action plans. Before adopting AI, you need a clear vision of how it will deliver value for your business.

You don’t have to choose between caution and progress. Our 'Embrace Digital. Stay Human.' tagline lays the groundwork, and our Consultants help you move forward with smart, structured steps. We recognize that AI is becoming increasingly essential for those who want to protect their margins, grow faster, and stay ahead of their competitors.

However, keep in mind that the human elements – strategic planning, thoughtful implementation, and expert guidance – are also indispensable. We help you move fast but smart, with structured steps that turn AI into measurable improvements for your business. Human expertise and digital innovation need to be balanced for successful adoption and implementation. It keeps you from wasting money on the wrong tools—and ensures your AI investments drive real, measurable growth.

WSI’s human-in-the-loop (HITL) approach to AI adoption is informed by this belief that the most successful AI integrations are essentially human-AI collaborations, with each side complementing and enhancing the other.

Here’s how to turn your AI interest into real results this quarter:

1. Establish AI as a Strategic Priority: To bridge the confidence-execution gap, businesses should elevate AI discussions to regular strategic planning sessions. By formalizing AI's place in business strategy conversations, organizations can ensure it receives appropriate attention and resources.
2. Start Small with Dedicated Resources: Set aside even a small budget this quarter for AI implementation. You’ll break the analysis-paralysis cycle and start learning what works. Begin with focused applications that address clear business challenges and demonstrate measurable ROI.
3. Leverage Expert Guidance: Partner with a WSI AI Consultant to fast-track your strategy. We’ll help you pinpoint where AI can deliver ROI fast, without overwhelming your team.
4. Move Beyond the “Do More with Less” Trap: Competitors prioritizing AI implementation may discover efficiencies and growth opportunities that widen the gap between you and them. Breaking free from this cycle requires a strategic shift from viewing AI as an extra project that requires additional resources to seeing it as a tool that can help optimize existing operations and unlock new revenue streams.

With help from an experienced WSI AI Consultant, you can turn today’s AI interest into next quarter’s performance gains. WSI’s AI implementation consulting experts will help you develop an AI Adoption Roadmap that identifies your highest-impact AI opportunities and creates a clear path to implementation. This personalized assessment cuts through the noise, reveals high-impact opportunities, and gives you the clarity and confidence to act.

If you are looking to unlock the power of AI in your core business or digital marketing, WSI can help. Our AI Consultants will walk alongside you as you incorporate the latest AI technologies into your operations with ease, improve your online reputation, streamline workflows, and drive measurable growth across your business. We can demonstrate why businesses like yours have every reason to have complete confidence in AI, and we can help you take the necessary steps to turn that confidence into actionable strategies.

Your competitors are already leveraging AI to accelerate growth. Don’t get left behind—book a strategy session with a WSI AI Consultant now.