Small business owner Jacquie Newberry was an artificial intelligence (AI) skeptic. That is until she started using it at work.
Newberry, a musician-turned-interior-designer, runs Bytown Designs. Through her Ottawa-based business, the TD Small Business Banking client transforms residential and commercial spaces into personality-filled homes and businesses.
Her journey towards AI enthusiasm began when she started using ChatGPT to help with administrative tasks that would otherwise dominate her schedule.
"It's allowed me to focus more of my energy on being more creative, instead of getting so fixated on a tricky email or construction schedule," she said.
Near the start of 2025, she began using an AI plugin to transform her physical design renderings into photorealistic images, which she could then share with clients. These images gave her clients a better sense of her design ideas – she can highlight how a piece of furniture will look in a room or how a space might appear at different times of day as lighting fluctuates.
"I find it really exciting," she said of how AI has impacted her workflow. "There's no sense in being afraid of something. Technology's always going to evolve; you're either on the train or you're off."
And Newberry's not alone onboarding AI in her work.
Taking the pulse of small business owners
According to a new Ipsos survey¹, conducted on behalf of TD, Canadian small business owners polled are beginning to use AI for many different business tasks. Almost half of respondents polled are using AI for marketing content creation. The next most popular use cases include document summarization, data analysis and reporting, and market research and trend analysis.
Those polled, however, remain divided about how their investments into AI might impact their businesses. Many are optimistic. More than half say it will have a very or somewhat positive impact. About 20% say it will have no impact and just a little more than 10% say it's too early to tell what the impact will be.
Among small businesses polled, those with revenues above $500,000 are much more likely to be using AI than those with revenues under $500,000. The former is also planning to invest more in AI tools and tends to think AI will have a positive impact, in comparison to the latter.
Working smarter
As Newberry knows, artificial intelligence tools can help some small business owners to punch above their weight. It can also help them – and their teams – automate certain tasks to help free up capacity to better focus their time on tasks of more importance to their businesses. Clients don't hire Newberry for her admin skills; they choose her after falling in love with her portfolio, which showcases her unique creative vision.
Newberry hired her first employee this April. She's encouraging her to use AI, too, and hopes they can learn from one another and put protocols and procedures in place to best fit their workflow.
While Newberry can't measure how much AI has impacted her business yet, she knows that so far it's helped save her time – valuable time she can put towards dreaming up design plans, or spending time with her family, instead of paperwork.
Portrait photo by JVL Photography