Your team may be using AI. The question is whether anyone owns it.
No one announced it. There was no policy meeting, no training sessions, and no sign-off. But somewhere, somehow, AI has quietly become a part of how your team works.
Customer emails are written via ChatGPT or Claude. Meeting notes are summarized in seconds. Test template built in minutes rather than hours.
Nothing is marked. There are many useful ones. Everything happens with or without you.
For many small businesses, this is where AI adoption begins—not with strategy, but when people find shortcuts and say it.
This creates a non-technical problem.
The danger with AI is when you don’t have a shared understanding of how best to use it. There is no common ground for what looks good, what needs to be tested, or who to hold accountable when your output turns out to be wrong.
That gap between informal consumption and energy consumption needs to be closed. And the North East TechNExt Festival, with Sage, Google and Multiverse, is your shortcut to doing so, if you live in Newcastle or the surrounding areas.
Free AI skills for your future
16 June 2026 at Sage, Cobalt Business Park, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Join this hands-on, breakout session that will focus on simple, proven ways SMEs are already using AI that goes beyond—and how you can use the same.
Book your place
From shortcut to skill
The difference between AI as a time saver and AI as something your business can truly rely on comes down to judgment: Knowing when to trust your output, when to be skeptical, and when not to use AI at all.
That decision comes from practice—and from seeing how other businesses in a similar situation are using these tools.
On 16 June, techUK, Sage, Google and Multiverse are running a free, full-day AI skills session in Newcastle as part of the North East TechNExt Festival, aimed specifically at small and medium-sized businesses.
It works by design. You’ll implement informed strategies that improve results quickly, identify where AI can reduce effort in your existing workflow, and see real-world examples of how other businesses are using it to perform repetitive, everyday tasks.
The afternoon covers what needs to be in place before you can even think about scaling—processes, data, defined results, human supervision.
All you need to bring is yourself and your laptop. You should expect to leave with something you can use.
What does the AI used look like
Tyne Chease, a UK food business, used Sage Ai to automate part of the process of chasing invoices—something it used to do manually, every week.
The result was straightforward: the business was paid up to seven days faster, about 14 hours of the director’s time saved each week. There is no technical reconstruction. There is no transition plan. One common task, enhanced with AI, with a clear and measurable result.
That’s the version of AI adoption that sticks. Not one built on hype, but one built on identifying a specific problem and testing whether AI can solve it.
Building a foundation
If your team can’t make the Newcastle session, check out the AI Skills Boost hub.
It’s a free government-backed programme, delivered in partnership with organizations including Sage, which offers short, practical courses designed for everyday business roles. The course lasts 20 minutes and covers the basic skills people need to use AI confidently and responsibly at work.
It cannot replace the experience of working with real examples in a room with other business owners. But it gives your team a shared starting point.
You will get the most out of AI if you are determined to use it well. The Newcastle session is a great place to start—and you’re invited. But hurry up. Places are limited.
Free AI skills for your future
16 June 2026 at Sage, Cobalt Business Park, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Join this hands-on, breakout session that will focus on simple, proven ways SMEs are already using AI that goes beyond—and how you can use the same.
Book your place
