Small business owners are turning to AI to manage their many companies: survey

The average small business owner wears five “hats” on any given day, according to new research — and not all of them fit.

A survey of 1,000 American small business owners found that today’s entrepreneur is simultaneously playing customer service representative (54%), marketer (44%), bookkeeper (43%), social media manager (41%) and creative director (35%), often with little idea of how much each role would demand.

With all of those “hats,” the average entrepreneur is working over 200 bonus hours annually. One in four small business owners surveyed admit that they carry the burden of tasks they don’t feel qualified for without seeking outside help.

More than half (54%) said they spend more time on creative and marketing tasks than they anticipated when they launched and 56% reported that those tasks pull them away from core business operations at least once a week.

Commissioned by Adobe Express and conducted by Talker Research, the survey found that only one in five (20%) felt fully prepared to handle the creative and brand marketing demands of today’s marketplace when starting their business.

The ‘creative cluster’ hat

The “creative cluster” tasks — spanning design and branding, social media and marketing — top the “hats” small business owners want off their plates.

With confidence lacking in the creative and marketing fields, 69% would prefer to outsource creative work in some form.

And for most owners of small to medium businesses, outsourcing the marketing hat to someone else isn’t an option. While many (41%) cite cost as a barrier, 37% also reported wanting to stay close to the process and 33% reported having concerns about maintaining quality.

AI is a creative sidekick for small business owners

Half of small business owner respondents (50%) say they use AI tools regularly or occasionally.

They most commonly turn to AI for research (56%), with design and visual content creation a close second (46%). When asked where AI delivers the most value, 30% of respondents find design and visual content creation most valuable when it comes to AI tools — ranked second after research (33%).

“I opened Treeline Coffee because I love coffee — but running a business means wearing a lot of hats. Managing branding, marketing and everything else made it hard to focus on what matters most,”said Natalie Van Dusen, founder of Treeline Coffee and Adobe Express community member. “But now AI and creative tools are giving me that time back, so I can focus on my customers and do what I love — make coffee.”

AI is boosting small business owners’ confidence

Forty-six percent of the small business owners surveyed described themselves as capable of handling creative and marketing tasks, but wish they could focus on other parts of their businesses instead.

Among respondents who use AI, nearly three-quarters say it has increased their confidence in handling tasks outside their expertise.

Thirty-eight percent of those at least remotely familiar with AI said its availability played some role in their decision to start a business, and 40% pointed specifically to AI’s ability to help in areas where they lacked confidence.

“Small business owners have always had to do it all — but for the first time, they don’t have to do it alone,” said Parimal Deshpande, Global Head of Product Marketing, Adobe Express. “We’re seeing that AI isn’t replacing founders, entrepreneurs and small businesses’ voice or vision; it’s removing the friction that gets in the way of it. When a coffee shop owner can produce on-brand social content in minutes instead of hours, that’s not just time saved — that’s confidence built, and energy redirected back into the business they actually set out to build.”