REDMOND, WASHINGTON – APRIL 4: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during an event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Microsoft on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington. The company also gave an update on Copilot, its AI tool. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
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Here are five things in tech that happened this week and how they affect your business.Did you miss them?
This Week in Business Technology News
Small Business Technology News #1 – Microsoft has a problem: No one wants to buy its “shoddy” tech products.
The article argues that Microsoft’s AI strategy – driven heavily by CEO Satya Nadella –has resulted in rushed, low‑quality products that customers don’t want. According to a recent report by The Information, internal AI efforts have been “struggling” to meet sales goals for its Azure AI products due to low customer interest. Microsoft has denied these reports, but the disappointing results for its AI products indicate an ongoing challenge for the company. Meanwhile, Google’s AI ecosystem is rapidly overtaking Microsoft’s in capability, adoption, and user satisfaction. And according to CEO agency, First Page Sage, Google’s Gemini has “sprinted past” Microsoft Copilot “quarter over quarter” with ChatGPT remaining in the lead. (Source: Windows Central)
Why this is important for your small business:
What I’m seeing with most of my Microsoft clients is that they have Copilot but they’re barely using Copilot. Part of that is because Microsoft, Google and other tech companies pushed products out the door to catch up to OpenAI that were not really ready for primetime, so they hurt their credibility. But the quality is getting better and now it’s just a perception and training issue. I bet if companies were to spend the money, hire a consultant for a few hours and get their people trained on Copilot the usage would go up substantially.
Small Business Technology News #2 – Perplexity: AI agents are taking over complex enterprise tasks.
Perplexity released large‑scale usage data showing that AI “agents” – systems capable of autonomous multi‑step reasoning and action – are already being heavily used by high‑value knowledge workers to streamline productivity and research. This is one of the first real‑world, large-scale study of how agentic AI is being adopted. Usage is concentrated in digital technology, academia, finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship. These groups represent over 70 percent of adopters with digital technology representing the largest share at 28 percent of adopters, 30 percent for queries. The data also found that 57 percent of agentic AI activity is being used for “cognitive work” as opposed to task-oriented commands. Perplexity’s study also highlighted the “stickiness” of AI agents for workflows. For example – if a user engages an agent for a specific task, subsequent queries are related to that task. New users who test agentic AI will start off with simple queries – e.g., movie recommendations – the evolve from there into productivity, learning and career development. (Source: AI News)
Why this is important for your small business:
AI agents are starting to take hold in technology (for software development) and customer service. They will continue to become more accurate and reliable. In 2026 I’m expecting to see agents becoming pervasive in financial services and embedded in Internet of Things devices to monitor environments.
Small Business Technology News #3 – LinkedIn is making it easier to integrate its verification badge outside platforms.
LinkedIn is making it easier to show your verified status on other platforms. LinkedIn –which now has over 100 million verified users – is launching a self-serve API so that external apps, websites, and services can display its “Verified on LinkedIn” badge outside of LinkedIn itself. This means businesses of all kinds can integrate LinkedIn’s verification badges into their own platforms. The company is also expanding partnerships, including with Zoom, where users will soon be able to display their LinkedIn verification during video calls – building on earlier integrations (like with Adobe). (Source: The Verge)
Why this is important for your small business:
I’m verified on LinkedIn and besides bragging about that here, this badge has had no other discernible benefit for me. I can add the badge to other platforms as described above, but does it really mean much? Or does it mean I’m just an incredibly successful, fabulous guy who’s crushing it at work and in my life like all the other people I seem to come across on LinkedIn.
Small Business Technology News #4 – QuickBooks Payments launches, helping customers get paid faster.
Intuit has launched QuickBooks Payments in the UK – a pay‑enabled invoicing system designed to help small and medium‑sized businesses (SMBs) get paid up to three times faster. QuickBooks sends 2.9 million invoices per month in the UK, and businesses offering pay‑enabled invoices already get paid faster. The feature is now available within Intuit’s AI‑driven QuickBooks platform and supports: Pay by Bank; Pay by Card, and additional payment methods coming soon. This is a significant update given that 52 percent (2.8 million) of UK small businesses experience late payments 13 percent of invoices are overdue by 30+ days – with many spending 21–30 hours/month chasing payments. Nick Williams – Intuit’s International Product Director – highlights that SMBs are often owed over £21,000 in unpaid invoices, creating cash‑flow stress. QuickBooks Payments aims to ease that burden. (Source: Fintech Finance News)
Why this is important for your small business:
U.K. businesses are not able to take advantage of this service, which is already available in the U.S. The idea is to integrate all payment systems – banks, credit cards, digital wallets – to your QuickBooks system so that payments are easy and seamless, thereby helping cash flow and easing administrative work. It takes an effort to setup but once done – and I’ve seen this at clients – it really does save time and reduce overhead costs. If you’ve got QuickBooks it’s an application you should be deploying.
Small Business Technology News #5 – Could AI replace seasonal workers?
Fox Business reported that retailers are increasingly experimenting with AI-driven automation to handle tasks that seasonal workers traditionally do, especially around the busy holiday period. AI tools – such as automated returns-management systems – can handle processes like return inspection, processing, restocking, and recycling faster and more accurately than manual labor.. (Source: Fox Business)
Why this is important for your small business:
I’m not sure AI is going to replace people, particularly at small businesses, during the holiday season anytime soon. But the more you get your employees to lean into the AI capabilities of your internal office, accounting and e-commerce systems, the more time they’ll save and the more productive they will be.
Each week I round up five small business technology news stories and explain why they’re important for your business. If you have any interesting stories, please post to my X account @genemarks
