The Adoption and Impact of AI by SMEs for New Product Development

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming business, including new product development (NPD), yet smaller firms face challenges in adoption. This article presents findings from a survey of Irish small and medium enterprises (SMEs) conducted with the Industry Research & Development Group. Despite AI's potential, the study reveals low AI implementation across 13 NPD applications, but more positive intentions to adopt AI in the near future. Performance improvements from AI are modest, with an average of 27% improvement across five key metrics. Readiness to adopt AI for NPD, however, is weak with SMEs exhibiting low trust, limited senior management commitment, and minimal demonstrated value from AI. The article concludes with five managerial recommendations, emphasizing the urgency for SMEs to leverage AI to boost innovation, and provides a simple process map for AI deployment.