70% of small businesses use AI. Almost none of them get time back.

70% of Dutch small businesses use AI. Last year it was a third. More than doubled in a year.

Sounds like a breakthrough. Until you look underneath the number.

Most stay at the surface

What are those owners actually using AI for?

• 56% write texts or make images with it.
• 36% get real insight into how the business is performing.
• Fewer still have AI inside their processes, where it takes over recurring work every week.

Sources: Exact MKB Barometer 2026 (press release 3 August 2026) and Accountancy Vanmorgen, 3 August 2026, both in Dutch. Research by Markteffect among more than 1,700 Dutch small-business owners.

Texts and images are the easy 10% of what the technology can do. A bit of copy here, an image there, a chatbot on the site.

That is AI as a loose tool next to your work. Not as a system that structurally saves hours. And that's the difference between businesses that use AI and businesses that get something out of it.

Why most get stuck: uncertainty and distrust

Almost half of small-business owners call themselves wary. Not only of the technology, also of the people working with it.

That's fair. Letting AI run inside your business means letting someone into your processes and your data. So you want to know what it does, what it delivers, and that you stay in charge.

I don't wave that hesitation away, I take it seriously. So I build in the open: you see what the automation does, what it saves, and you stay the owner. That earns more trust than any promise about “the power of AI”.

From loose tool to real advantage

Loose tools are the starting line, not the finish. The gain sits in AI that lives inside your processes and shows you what works.

Concretely, beyond writing a bit of copy:

• Quotes and leads that get followed up automatically, so nothing goes cold.
• Recurring admin that handles itself instead of eating your evenings.
• Insight into what's happening in your business, without pulling reports by hand.

No magic. Just less manual work and more overview. This is exactly the kind of AI automation I build for businesses.

One last thing

Already using AI? Then you're past the first hurdle. The question is no longer whether you use AI. The question is whether it gives you time back, or stays an experiment.

Curious where AI in your business could be more than a text generator? Send me a message or mail robin@broersmarketing.com. I'll think along for free about one process you could automate this month.