2023 was also a year when we started to see how generative AI is making a difference for small and medium-sized businesses, giving them new tools to grow, get things done and drive new streams of revenue. For the first time, business owners used AI tools like Gemini to build ad campaigns and reach new customers in Performance Max, respond to customers faster and produce helpful business insights in minutes, instead of hours.
This is only the beginning. AI-powered tools are going to continue to help businesses and communities unlock more productivity, creativity and opportunities in the years ahead. In fact, 82% of small business leaders that already use AI say that it will improve their business productivity in the next two years.
Embracing new technology to grow
Many companies have already experimented with AI tools to grow their businesses. Take Wisecut co-founder and CEO Ivo Machado, who left his native Brazil eight years ago to pursue new opportunities in the U.S. Ivo was working in video editing to pay the bills when he began exploring AI and thought, “What if there was an algorithm that could make these editing decisions for you in minutes instead of hours?” Ivo turned to his brother Vicente, a software developer, and they launched Wisecut in Miami in 2019. They used Google Search to grow their customer base, participated in the Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund, and in 2023 increased their users by 4,000% and tripled their employees. Today half a million creators use Wisecut’s AI features to save countless hours by automatically cutting and editing, adding subtitles, and more.