The AI Hype Machine Is Kililng AI For Small Businesses
Something weird happened in 2024.
Small business owners got sold on AI harder than any tech in recent memory. The pitches were everywhere: “AI will 10x your business!” “Work 4 hours a week!” “Fire half your team and triple revenue!”
So they tried it.
And then they quit.
In 2024, 42% of small businesses were using AI. By April 2025? That number crashed to just 28%.
That’s a 33% DROP in adoption in one year.
But here’s what makes this really interesting: it’s not because AI doesn’t work. It’s because the hype made it impossible for AI to actually help anyone.
Let me explain.
The Hype Gap is the distance between what you were promised and what you actually got.
And right now, that gap is so massive that it’s killing AI adoption faster than any technology limitation ever could.
Here’s what the hype promised small businesses:
AI agents running your entire customer service
Automated sales that close deals while you sleep
Content that ranks #1 on Google, written in seconds
Chatbots that understand your customers better than you do
Here’s what small businesses actually got:
ChatGPT that helps write emails (which is legitimately useful)
Image generators that create weird hands
Chatbots that frustrate customers more than help them
A $149 course teaching them to use tools they could’ve learned in 20 minutes
Gene Marks is a small business consultant who works with 600+ clients and speaks at 50+ industry conferences every year. He’s talked to thousands of business owners about their AI usage.
His take? “Don’t believe what you read.”
He says most businesses aren’t “adopting AI” - they’re dabbling. They’re using ChatGPT to write an email. They’re generating a few images. They’re asking it to review a contract.
This is helpful stuff. But it’s not the revolution they were sold.
Real AI adoption - where AI agents automatically reconcile your accounts, place orders, converse with customers, and produce quotes based on historical data - isn’t happening at small businesses. Not even close.
Why not? Three reasons: cost, reliability, and trust.
The Guy Who Actually Made AI Work
Remember how I said AI CAN work? Here’s proof.
A business owner who runs a $1.5 million pet care education company went through this exact journey. He got caught up in the hype, tried every shiny new tool, and ended up with his team juggling 30 different AI applications.
His team spent more time switching between tools than actually working.
Sound familiar?
But then he changed his approach. Instead of chasing every new AI tool that launched, he focused on ONE thing: automating the workflows that already made him money.
The result? He reduced his team from 10 people to 3 while maintaining the same output.
Not by using AI chatbots or AI voice assistants or AI agents.
By automating boring, repetitive tasks in his existing business processes. One workflow per month. Document it. Automate it. Move on.
He says: “90% of AI tools being promoted today are more hype than help for real businesses making real money.”
The difference? He ignored the hype and solved actual problems.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
According to the NEXT Insurance survey of 1,500 small business owners:
58% say they have NO plans to use AI for business at all
Only 23% would “definitely consider” adding AI (down from 27% last year)
Just 19% - roughly 1 in 5 - might add it
The top barriers?
55% say cost is why they’re not using AI
62% don’t understand AI’s actual benefits
9% see it as a threat to their business
9% believe it won’t affect them at all
And here’s the kicker: the ones who ARE using AI are finding value. They’re using it for content creation (11%), customer service (9%), product recommendations (8%), scheduling (8%), and accounting (7%).
It’s just... not revolutionary. It’s incremental. It’s helpful, not transformational.
And that’s the problem. The hype promised transformation. Reality delivered incremental improvement.
When expectations are set at “this will change everything” and reality is “this saved me 30 minutes,” people feel disappointed - even when that 30 minutes is genuinely valuable.
Try This Today: The Un-Hyped Approach
Here’s what you should actually do if you want AI to help your business:
Step 1: Forget everything you’ve heard about AI “revolutionizing” anything.
Step 2: Pick ONE repetitive task you hate doing. Just one.
Writing the same type of email over and over?
Scheduling social media posts?
Transcribing client calls?
Creating first drafts of routine documents?
Step 3: Use ChatGPT (the free version is fine) to help with JUST that task for one week.
Step 4: Track the time you save. Actually write it down.
If it saves you even 30 minutes a week, that’s 26 hours a year. That’s three full work days you get back.
That’s three days you could spend with your family. Or working ON your business instead of IN it. Or just... not working.
That’s the real win. Not “AI replaced my team.” Not “I 10xed my revenue.”
Just: “I got Tuesday afternoon back.”
Why The Hype Is Actually Hurting You
Here’s the thing nobody’s saying out loud:
The AI hype isn’t just annoying. It’s actively preventing you from benefiting from AI.
When you’re told AI will “revolutionize everything,” you either:
Feel paralyzed because you don’t know where to start
Try everything and get overwhelmed
Buy expensive courses promising secret AI strategies
Give up when reality doesn’t match the hype
A translation company owner named Danilo Coviello said it perfectly: “AI can’t sense tone shifts, legal nuance, or when a vague phrase could cost a client down the line. It doesn’t ask follow-up questions. That’s where people still matter. Accuracy, accountability, and context still belong to humans.”
He uses AI behind the scenes for prep work and terminology checks. Not to replace his translators.
That’s it. That’s the secret.
Use AI for the boring stuff so humans can do the human stuff.
But when you’re sold on “AI will replace your entire workforce,” that simple, useful truth gets drowned out by disappointment.
According to MIT researchers, 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing. Not because the technology doesn’t work, but because expectations were set impossibly high.
Small businesses tried AI because someone told them they had to.
They quit because what they got didn’t match what they were promised.
The saddest part? Many of them probably found tools that saved them real time. Tools that could’ve given them more hours with their kids, more mental space, more freedom.
But because it wasn’t the “revolution” they were sold, it felt like a failure.
So here’s my question for you:
What if we stopped chasing the AI revolution and started appreciating the AI evolution?
What if saving 30 minutes a day was actually... enough?
That’s 3.5 hours a week. 182 hours a year. Almost a full month of work time.
Would you take a free month back? Or are you still holding out for the robot that does everything?
The hype killed AI for small businesses. But the reality - boring, incremental, helpful AI - is still sitting there, waiting for you to give it another shot.
Just this time, maybe ignore the promises and focus on the problems.
P.S. If you’re one of the 58% who said you’re not touching AI, I get it. You got burned by the hype. But don’t let the liars keep you from a tool that could actually help. Start small. One task. One week. See what happens.
And if you’re one of the 28% still using it? Keep going. Just stop trying to build the future and start solving today.
See you next Wednesday,
Dex
This article comes at the perfect time. Reminds me of unrealistic Pilates promisses.
Great article! As it says a lot of us tend to have unrealistically high expectations on AI and thought using the AI tools everyone's been hyping about means one step to success, but it's not. We just gotta still do the human stuff to make it work.