Initiative
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AI Adoption in SMBs
How owners evaluate tools, train teams, and decide where automation belongs in daily operations.
Business & Applied AI
Alderstone University
A research university studying how small and medium businesses turn artificial intelligence into daily operating advantage.
2012Year Alderstone University was founded.
3Research initiatives on business management and applied AI.
3Phases in the current study of AI use in small and medium businesses.
SMBOwner-operated firms are the focus of every program.
Research
Management research for the AI operating era.
Alderstone focuses on the decisions business owners make when AI becomes part of ordinary work: hiring, customer service, finance, marketing, operations, and managerial judgment.
Our work is organized around research areas, initiatives, publications, and events, each written for the people who run companies rather than for the people who sell software to them.
Initiatives
Centers of work
Three programs organize the university's research on how smaller firms adopt AI and redesign management practice around it.
Initiative
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Future of Work Forum
Management practice, role design, and the changing relationship between judgment and software.
Initiative
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Operator Resilience Lab
Decision systems for smaller firms operating with thinner teams, volatile demand, and new AI capabilities.
Current Study
How small and medium businesses use AI in daily work.
The study asks business owners where AI saves time, where it creates risk, and which management habits separate useful adoption from tool sprawl.
Phase I
Questionnaire of US small and medium business owners on where AI is used in daily work and how those decisions are made.
Phase II
Optional interviews with operators who choose to discuss workflows, constraints, and decision patterns.
Phase III
Aggregated benchmark report on AI usage patterns across management, operations, marketing, and customer support.
Insights
Forthcoming publications
Briefs and working papers from the current study are published here as each phase is completed.
The Owner's AI Stack: A Field Guide for Smaller Firms
Management brief on how operators sort AI tools into experimentation, adoption, and governance.
From Prompting to Process: Where AI Changes Daily Work
Working paper outlining research questions for task redesign and managerial oversight.
Small Business AI Benchmark: Questionnaire Preview
Preview of the topics covered by the Phase I survey instrument.
Events
Roundtables and briefings
Invitation-only formats for study participants, partners, and advisors. Dates are announced to registered participants by email.
Operator Roundtable: AI in Customer Operations
An invitation-only discussion for service businesses, retailers, and B2B firms on where AI belongs in customer-facing work.
Research Briefing: The Practical AI Adoption Curve
A briefing that shares aggregated findings from the current study with participants and advisors.
About
Built around the decisions operators actually make.
Alderstone's voice is formal, calm, and management-focused. Our work is written for owners and managers who have to decide, this quarter, what to adopt, what to ignore, and how to keep judgment in the loop.
Founded in 2012, Alderstone University began as a program on management practice in smaller firms. As artificial intelligence moved from experiment to everyday tool, the university's research turned to the operating questions that shift raises for owners.
Today the university runs three initiatives and one multi-phase study, publishes briefs and working papers, and convenes roundtables and briefings for participants, partners, and advisors.