“AI is perfectly within reach of SMEs. It costs less than a BMW”
There is no need to spend “hundreds of thousands of euros” to implement AI in an SME. “It costs less than a BMW, and it doesn’t need to be the top of the range,” says Claranet’s CEO, António Miguel Ferreira.
Companies lack “a little ambition”. That is how the head of Claranet in Portugal, Spain and Brazil explains the low take-up of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by Portuguese and European companies. In an interview with ECO, António Miguel Ferreira challenges managers to take the “initiative”, pointing out that “hundreds of thousands of euros” are not needed to run an AI project in a small or medium-sized company: “It is much less money.”
With AI dominating every technology discussion in recent years, it is no surprise that the data and AI segment was the fastest-growing at Claranet Portugal last year. But there is still a long way to go in integrating these solutions, which promise more efficiency and productivity, into the business fabric: “We worry more about the implications of the technology than about actually taking the technology and doing something new with it,” he warns.
AI translation from the Portuguese. First published in ECO on 21 February 2025.