LinkedIn, artificial intelligence drives workers to become entrepreneurs

In small and medium-sized enterprises, artificial intelligence is becoming a springboard for many workers to become entrepreneurs. Ai is undoubtedly the engine that, more than others, is transforming jobs, ambitions and growth models, as recounted in LinkedIn's Work Change Report, which analyses emerging signals from more than 18 million small and medium-sized enterprises on the platform worldwide.

There is a strong propensity for people to become entrepreneurs according to the numbers: globally, the number of those who added the word 'founder' to their profile in the period from July 2024 to July 2025 increased by 60 per cent. Moreover, one in five professionals say they want to set up their own business. If we narrow the field of observation to Italy, almost 4 in 10 (39%) of small businesses say that thanks to Ai they have started to consider entrepreneurial paths previously unexplored.

Globally, 85% of small businesses are already using Ai in some way, according to the LinkedIn report: so it is no longer a question of 'whether' to adopt it, but how quickly to do so. In Italy, more than half, 56 per cent, of workers in small businesses think that Ai will improve their daily working lives. Adoption is already tangible, especially when it comes to adopting the tools autonomously: 22% of Italian employees in fact say they use Ai autonomously for advanced tasks, while a third, 31%, use it for everyday activities such as email writing, summaries, notes or for research purposes.

This therefore means that it could be an interesting tool to automate repetitive tasks in customer service, generate marketing content, support recruiting and enable data-driven decisions once only accessible to large companies. It is therefore not surprising that 70 per cent of the marketing managers of small and medium-sized Italian companies believe that Ai will help smaller brands compete with larger players active in market segments previously considered inaccessible. "Today, Ai is a technology that is enhancing both the potential of people and the chances of success of small and medium-sized companies," comments Marcello Albergoni, Country Manager of LinkedIn Italy. "For small businesses, AI is no longer an optional choice but an open race: what makes the difference is not just the adoption but the speed, maturity and, especially, the skills with which you get on board.

The acceleration does not only concern technology adoption - and thus the purely quantitative aspect - but also skills, i.e. the qualitative counterpart. In Italy, skill Ai per employee in companies with 11-50 employees grew by 54% year-on-year, compared to 39% in large companies (1001+ employees). Among the enabling factors, the role of employers emerges: 44% of employees in small companies are learning to integrate Ai into their workflow through company training. Despite this, the need for guidance remains high: 36% of professionals in Italian small businesses do not know which skills - apart from Ai - will be crucial for their career growth.