AI gives your team time back. Spend it wisely.

AI is often sold as a way to do the same work in less time. Emily Miller of Founders Forum argues that the more useful question is what a business does with the time it gets back. In practice, AI does not shrink the job - it raises expectations. Teams become supercharged, and the organisations that win are the ones that have decided in advance where that extra capacity should go. From her vantage point at Founders Forum and AI for Growth ecosystems, Emily sees the lived experience of AI adoption across startups and SMEs every day: what is genuinely working, which barriers keep recurring and what happens if you meet AI unprepared. Her central message is that strategy has to come before technology. Adopting AI because it is fashionable produces pilots and dashboards; adopting AI against a clear business objective produces growth. Emily brings first-hand examples from Founders Forum’s own AI transformation, which she co-leads, covering how teams and workflows are changing inside a real organisation. She then turns to the ecosystem: what effective collaboration between government, startups, SMEs and large corporates might looks like, and why policymakers need earlier and sharper feedback from the businesses doing the work. She also encourages to take the first steps with AI for Growth, the non-profit alliance helping UK startups and SMEs adopt AI with free, practical tools, including an AI strategy generator that starts from your business objectives. This is an interactive session with live audience polling rather than a lecture. You leave knowing how to tie AI to your own objectives, how to bring your whole team with you, and where to find free support to take the next step.