Description
This paper examines the most effective means of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into their business practises. In addition to the challenges and limitations described in the existing literature, the experiences of the KI-Labor Südbaden will be used as a case study. Although AI has shown rapid technical progress in the past years, implementation of AI solutions within companies, especially within German SMEs, has been noticeably slower. In this paper, we undertake a literature review, then summarize our experiences from working with local SMEs over the past two years. We have identified many challenges that delay AI adoption, including lack of technical know-how, infrastructure, and useable data. To overcome these challenges, we build off of our experiences to detail a systematic approach for AI onboarding.