SMEs not worried about artificial intelligence

Around 65% of UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are not concerned by the prospect of artificial intelligence, according to research from Close Brothers Asset Finance.

In a study of around 1,000 UK and RoI SME owners, 36% of respondents said that they did not fear the prospect of artificial intelligence because it was still too far in the future to worry about. A further 29% believed AI would improve productivity.

However, 35% of respondents feared the introduction of AI would take jobs and create a number of ethical issues.

This month, Google’s artificial intelligence company DeepMind announced it was capable of diagnosing optical diseases by analysing retinal scans with its algorithms.