What work can AI take over?
AI is mainly good at work with language and images: reading documents, sorting messages, drafting texts and answering questions. Whether it can handle your own task only shows in a test with real examples from your work, and a test like that costs from €2,500.
Take, for example, an installation company with twenty employees, where supplier invoices and customer requests come in. These are the applications businesses have built:
| Task | What AI does | Check needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Reading documents (invoices, forms, photos) | Takes the data out and passes it to your system | Yes, where a lot depends on it |
| Sorting messages | Puts email or requests into categories | Sample |
| First drafts | Makes a first version of an answer or summary | Yes, an employee approves |
| Answering questions | Answers from your own manuals and terms | Test beforehand; the assistant says if it is not there |
| Searching your own documents | Finds what you look for in large amounts of text | No, you read the source |
These are tasks on which your people spend a lot of time: reading, writing, sorting, answering questions. The installation company has the invoices read and the requests sorted, and an employee checks what depends on them.
Do you see a task from your own business in the table? Request a quote and name the task that takes your staff the most time.
What can AI not do reliably?
AI is not reliable at four things. It does not decide without checking when the consequences are legal or medical or cost a lot of money: AI can support such decisions, a person takes them. It is not always right: AI can give an answer that sounds convincing and is wrong, which is why most of the time in a project goes into testing. It is not the right choice for tasks you can describe fully with fixed rules, because ordinary software is then cheaper and more reliable since it never has to guess. And it does not work without examples: without real examples you cannot measure whether it works.
How do you know whether AI works for your task?
In four steps:
- Collect real examples from your own work, for example a hundred invoices, messages or questions.
- Measure how often the feature gives a correct result, before anyone relies on it. A feeling is not a measurement.
- Decide what happens when the feature is not sure. Depending on the task, an employee approves the answer first, or the feature says it does not know.
- Start with one task. After a few weeks, look at what it delivers, and then extend.
What does AI cost for your business?
A test with your own examples costs from €2,500, excluding VAT. Count on about €100 an hour; a test like that is about 25 hours of work. For the installation company, a test with a hundred supplier invoices looks like this:
| Part | Hours |
|---|---|
| Collecting a hundred invoices and noting the correct data for each | 6 |
| Setting up the AI feature for these invoices | 6 |
| Measuring how often it is right, and looking at the mistakes | 8 |
| Working out the monthly cost and writing the advice | 3 |
| Meetings and planning | 2 |
| Total | 25 |
25 hours at €100 is €2,500. Afterwards the company knows how often the feature reads an invoice correctly, which mistakes it makes and what its use costs a month. Only then does it decide whether the feature is built.
Building the feature into the company’s software starts at around 100 hours, about €10,000. That amount buys the connection to the system where the data ends up, a screen in which an employee approves the result, and a cap on what the provider charges each month. If the test turns out badly, you do not spend that amount.
Want to know what a test of your own task would cost? Request a quote and say which documents or messages it is about.
What does using AI cost each month?
After the build, the provider of the AI model usually charges a small amount per use. The formula for the running costs is therefore:
number of uses a month × cost per use = monthly amount
The cost per use depends on the model and on how much text or image is sent each time. Ask for an estimate of the monthly amount for the use you expect, and set a maximum per month, so that an unexpectedly busy month does not surprise you. How the build cost of software is put together in general is in how much does it cost to build an app?.
What should you know about privacy and the AI Act?
For privacy and the AI Act there are five points; if in doubt your privacy adviser decides.
- Your data goes to a provider. An AI feature works by sending text or images to the provider of the AI model, and the result comes back. Leave out personal data where you can, and record which information goes to which company.
- If the provider processes personal data on your behalf, you need a processing agreement (article 28 of the GDPR).
- Choose a provider and settings under which your information is not used to train that provider’s AI models, and have it written into the quote.
- For AI literacy, article 4 of the European AI Act requires providers and users of AI systems to take measures so that their staff are sufficiently AI literate, as far as possible. That has applied since 2 February 2025. It sets no level for an individual; it asks you to make an effort. See the text of article 4.
- If an AI feature talks to people, say that they are dealing with an AI system.
What you do and do not enter in a chatbot is in ChatGPT and the GDPR.
Where do you begin?
Choose one task on which your people spend a lot of time and that you can describe with real examples. Test it first, then have a person check the result and measure for a few weeks. Only when it works do you extend. That is cheaper and safer than a large AI plan nobody has tested.
When is AI not the solution?
AI is not the solution in four situations. If you can describe the task fully with fixed rules, write ordinary software or use an existing product. If a mistake costs a lot and nobody checks, do not start, or have a person check. If you have no examples, collect them first. And if a product already exists that does what you need, buy that; custom software or off-the-shelf software shows how to choose.
How many businesses already use AI?
Statistics Netherlands (CBS) measures AI use every year. In 2025, 17% of Dutch businesses with two or more employed persons used AI (provisional figure), against 13% in 2024 and 8% in 2023: more than a doubling in two years. The larger the business, the more often it uses AI, according to CBS of 12 December 2025:
| Business size | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 to 10 employed persons | 7% | 11% | 14% |
| 10 to 50 employed persons | 11% | 19% | 27% |
| 50 to 250 employed persons | 20% | 31% | 45% |
| 250 or more employed persons | 42% | 53% | 66% |
What do those businesses use it for? Of the businesses that use AI, 35% do so for marketing or sales, 32% for business administration or operations, 25% for research and innovation, 18% for production or service delivery, 17% for accounting or financial management, 11% for ICT security and 4% for logistics.
For small businesses there is a separate measurement. Of the micro-enterprises (2 to 10 employed persons), 13.8% used AI in 2025, reports CBS of 16 March 2026. The businesses that had thought about it but did not do it often named lack of experience (71.6%); about half named privacy.
Frequently asked questions
What can AI do for a small business?
Tasks with language and images: reading documents, sorting messages, writing drafts, answering questions from your own documents. According to CBS, 14% of businesses with 2 to 10 employed persons used AI in 2025.
What does it cost to use AI in my business?
A test with your own examples costs from €2,500. An AI feature built into your software starts at around €10,000. After that the provider of the AI model usually charges a small amount each time; ask for an estimate per month and set a maximum.
Is AI safe for my business data?
Whether AI is safe for your data depends on what you put in and on the provider. Leave out personal data where you can, choose settings under which your data is not used for training, and conclude a processing agreement if personal data is processed.
Do I have to do anything with the AI Act?
The duty of AI literacy (article 4) has applied since 2 February 2025 to providers and users of AI systems. If you use AI for ordinary office tasks, such as reading invoices or writing drafts, that is usually where it ends. If AI helps decide about people, for example in hiring or credit, stricter rules apply and a lawyer decides.
Why do businesses not start with AI?
CBS reports that businesses that considered AI but did not use it often named lack of experience (71.6%) and that about half named privacy.
Can AI replace people?
For tasks where a mistake costs little or a person checks, AI can take over a lot of work. For decisions with large consequences, a person remains responsible.
Having AI built in by us
If the task can be described with fixed rules, or you have no examples yet, you do not need us yet. If you want AI in the software you already use, we start with a test on your own examples, from €2,500, and only build the feature in when the test turns out well. Request a quote for the task you would most like to hand over, and you receive the work, the price and an estimate of the monthly amount in writing.
Want this built, or want to talk it through?
Write to us with what it is for, who will use it and when you need it. We reply within one working day.
Read next
- Custom software vs off-the-shelf: when to build, from €2,500What custom software is, where its price starts, when to buy instead, and how to work out which is cheaper.
- How much does it cost to build an app? From €2,500Where the price of an app starts, what each addition costs and how to work out a number for your own idea.
- ChatGPT and GDPR: what can your business type into it?Which data you can safely enter, what must be arranged before you enter personal data and what to do when an employee already has.
- Can AI build your app? What it does and what it missesWhat an AI tool builds, what is missing before real users can rely on it and how to decide whether it is enough.
