For the European SME sector, artificial intelligence has ceased to be a technological curiosity and has become a macroeconomic necessity. The latest data coming out of the market points to a clear turning point: in the face of economic uncertainty and competitive pressures, AI is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ option, but part of a survival strategy. However, research conducted by Sharp Europe on a group of 2,500 business leaders reveals a significant disconnect between growing confidence in the technology and the ability of organisations to absorb it effectively and safely.
Although three quarters of European SME owners today give AI more confidence than they did a year ago, this enthusiasm is mixed with operational concerns. More than half of decision-makers admit that the main drivers for investment are the fear of falling behind the competition and the need to optimise costs in a difficult market environment. Roland Singer, vice president of IT services at Sharp Europe, notes that companies have stopped asking questions about the sense of deployment, focusing solely on the speed at which solutions scale. Despite this, 55 per cent of leaders are concerned that their organisations are not realising the potential of the tools they have purchased, and almost half still lack clear governance and security guidelines.
Against this background, Poland is emerging as one of the leaders of digital courage in Europe, although the specifics of our market differ from our western neighbours. According to the data, as many as 62.8 per cent of Polish companies declare full integration of AI in key processes. Importantly, the motivations over the Vistula are eminently pragmatic. While companies in France or Germany prioritise security and regulatory issues, Polish SMEs focus on hard economic indicators: ROI, employment cost reduction and productivity growth.
However, this aggressive course towards efficiency comes at a price in the form of the ‘Shadow AI’ phenomenon. As many as 56 per cent of Polish employees are using artificial intelligence tools on their own, often without the knowledge of their superiors and outside the control of IT departments. While this is indicative of bottom-up innovation by human resources, for integrators and service providers it is a wake-up call about data leakage and lack of tightness in procedures. Employees fear that the use of AI will be perceived as ‘taking shortcuts’, which paradoxically inhibits official system adoption in favour of implicit use.
The lesson is clear for the channel market: selling licences or cloud infrastructure alone is no longer enough. SME customers, despite their stated investment in training (39 per cent of companies) and data security, are still navigating in the dark. The skills gap and employees’ lack of confidence in the results generated by algorithms create space for technology partners who will offer not only a product, but above all a security policy framework and change management advice. Companies integrating document management services with cyber security as part of a ‘one Sharp’ strategy, indicate the direction in which the market is moving – from hardware provider to architect of the digital working environment.
