AI glossary for businesses
Artificial intelligence (AI)
In short
Artificial intelligence (AI) is software that performs tasks that normally need human judgement, such as understanding text, recognising images, spotting patterns or making predictions. It learns these skills from large amounts of data instead of following only hand-written rules. Most small businesses use AI through ready-made tools rather than building their own.
How AI works
Traditional software follows rules that a programmer writes: "if the invoice is over 1,000 euros, ask for approval". AI works differently. It is shown many examples and finds the patterns itself. Think of a new employee who learns to sort customer emails by reading hundreds of old ones, instead of memorising a manual. The result is a model that can handle cases it has never seen, with good but not perfect accuracy.
AI is a broad family. Machine learning covers systems that learn from data, such as a sales forecast. Generative AI, the newer branch behind ChatGPT, Claude and Google Gemini, produces text, images or code when you ask for it.
In practice for a small business
Picture a small e-shop selling home goods. The owner uses ChatGPT to draft product descriptions in Greek and English, Canva's AI features to prepare social media visuals and Shopify Magic to suggest email subject lines. A person checks every output before it goes live. This kind of support often cuts drafting time by roughly 30–50%, but that is only an estimate. Measure it in a short pilot before you change how the team works.
Other common first steps are meeting summaries, replies to repeat customer questions and spreadsheet analysis. The article on AI use cases by department lists more ideas.
Why it matters and what to watch out for
Errors: AI can be wrong and sound completely sure. Keep a human review step for anything a customer sees.
Personal data: if you paste customer or employee data into a tool, GDPR applies. Check where the data is stored and whether the vendor uses it to train its models. Where personal data is processed at scale, you may need a DPIA (data protection impact assessment).
Regulation: the EU AI Act sets duties by level of risk. Since 2 February 2025, companies that use AI must take steps so that their staff have sufficient AI literacy. Check the details with your DPO or legal advisor.
Cost: many tools charge per user per month. Start with one clear task, not a company-wide rollout.
The useful question is not "should we use AI?" but "which task do we try first, and how will we know it worked?"