Square Offers Its AI Assistant to UK Merchants

Square AI, which is embedded into the Square platform, is designed to help businesses make clever and faster decisions using their in-house payments and commerce data, the company said in a news release Tuesday (Feb. 10).

“For a long time, turning that data into real insight has been something reserved for larger organizations with analysts and operations teams,” Willem Avé, Square’s global head of product, said in the release.

“Square AI levels the playing field by bringing powerful analytics into the flow of running a business, through a simple, conversational AI assistant. It enables businesses of every size to combine their instinct with real data, without complexity.”

The company introduced Square AI in June of last year, and in October added new capabilities such as external weather, events, news and reviews data. Merging this data with merchants’ business metrics, helps give them insights that will inform their decisions around menus, staffing and inventory, Square said at the time.

Square says the launch of Square AI in the U.K. follows new research commissioned by the company, showing that while 53% of the U.K.’s small and medium-sized enterprises have used AI in their business, less than a third use it regularly.

“This low level of adoption is leaving many businesses experimenting without seeing value, or not yet taking advantage of AI at all,” the company said.

This uneven level of AI adoption among businesses in the U.K. dovetails with research by PYMNTS Intelligence which shows that AI use can vary according to types of business.

For example, 75% of technology firms surveyed said they were extremely familiar with agentic AI, compared with about 1 in 3 goods-producing firms and 38% of services companies. And while 42% of tech companies were actively exploring ways to integrate agentic AI into their operations, under 4% of goods companies — and no service companies — said the same.

At the same time, the small and medium-sized businesses that embrace artificial intelligence are employing the technology to compete with larger enterprises, PYMNTS wrote last year.

“By automating processes, augmenting talent, and accelerating decision-making, AI enables smaller firms to bypass legacy systems and leap directly into an AI-first business model — one that can rival what large incumbents offer,” that report said.