Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of AI adoption on the productivity and competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); and what steps they are taking to support the responsible uptake of AI tools by SMEs.

Adoption of Artificial Intelligence by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) can unlock significant productivity gains. An OECD paper published last year estimates that AI could increase UK annual labour productivity growth by 1.4 to 2.7 percentage points over 10 years. This has been estimated by DSIT analysts to be equivalent to £55 billion to £140 billion economic (GVA) growth.

It is important for government to support with this, in partnership with industry. That is why the Department for Business and Trade created the SME Digital Adoption Taskforce and are working to deliver on their ten recommendations, including a series of industry roundtables and local-level pilots to tackle barriers SMEs face when adopting digital technologies including AI.