If you run a small business in Wales and you want to understand AI before you spend a penny on it, there is more support available than most people realise. It is also scattered across three or four websites, written in the language of press releases and rarely tells you whether it is meant for you.
This is the plain version. We read the primary pages on the 18th of October 2026, so everything below is as it stood that day. Schemes change, workshops fill up and websites get rewritten, so treat it as a map and confirm the detail before you plan around any of it.
What the Welsh Government has put money behind
On the 12th of January 2026 the Welsh Government announced £2.1 million to help small and medium sized businesses across Wales adopt AI. The announcement splits it three ways.
£600,000 for Business Wales. This pays for an AI awareness and adoption programme for small firms. It is the part most owners will meet first and it is the part still being rolled out.
£500,000 for tourism and events. This covers a pilot project with the Hartree Centre Cardiff Hub and Cardiff University aimed at event organisers. There are also in-person workshops giving up to 1,000 Welsh tourism microbusinesses and small firms practical AI skills for marketing and content.
£1 million for the Flexible Skills Programme. This is the Welsh Government's existing training subsidy, with an AI upskilling offer added.
Here is the thing worth being clear about. Those are budgets. They are not vouchers you can claim. The announcement does not set out who qualifies, how to apply or any deadlines, so nobody should tell you that you are "entitled to £2.1 million of AI funding". What exists is a set of programmes, funded from that pot, that you can use.
Business Wales, the first stop
For most owners the starting point is Business Wales and it has several things you can use today without a funding application.
The helpline. Business Wales runs a helpline on 03000 6 03000, open 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday. Calls in Welsh are welcome. If you do nothing else after reading this, a short call is a sensible first move, because the adviser should be able to point you to the current programmes that fit a business of your size and sector. Useful questions to ask are which AI sessions are open to you now, whether any are specific to your trade and whether anything is available in Welsh or in person near you. Write the answers down, because web pages can lag behind what is actually running.
The e-learning course. Business Wales hosts a short online course called "Using AI in your business". It covers the basic concepts of AI and its applications in business, the benefits and risks of bringing it in and how to start using it safely. You sign in or register an account to try it. We could not see a price or a course length on the page, so check both before you rely on it.
Events and workshops. The Business Wales events finder lists AI sessions across the country, from networking events and webinars to practical workshops. The ones listed on the day we looked ran into the last week of October and new ones appear regularly.
The awareness programme, when it opens. The Business Wales AI page says more information on its early awareness sessions and how to register, will be available shortly. We could not see a date. If the programme has opened by the time you read this, that is the one to join.
These are all aimed at the beginner end, which is exactly where most small firms are. If you are asking what AI actually is and whether it is safe to use with customer details, this is the right layer to start with
If you run a tourism or hospitality business
Hospitality owners have a dedicated option. Visit Wales runs an in-person workshop called "AI made practical", funded by the Welsh Government and delivered by MWT Cymru. The workshop page describes it as free of charge and designed for small and micro tourism and hospitality businesses, whether you are new to AI or already experimenting.
The day runs from 10am to 3:30pm and covers the jobs that eat a hospitality owner's week. Writing social media posts, tidying your Visit Wales and Google listings, answering customer questions faster and turning enquiries into bookings. It is hands-on rather than a lecture and the slides and handouts are bilingual and the presenter speaks English. A form on the booking page lets you ask for a Welsh-language session.
Two cautions. Places are limited, with a maximum of two people per business across the whole series. And a Business Wales news item from August says the workshops run in September and October 2026, so some may already be full or finished. Check the booking page for what remains and use the form on it to register interest in future sessions if the dates have gone.
Training that is subsidised rather than free
There is a third layer and it is not free. The Flexible Skills Programme pays a share of accredited training costs for Wales-based employers, with an AI pilot alongside it. We went through the rates, the caps and the sector eligibility wrinkles in our guide to where the public money for AI adoption actually is, so we will not repeat them here and risk giving you two versions of the same rules. Read that one before you pay anyone for training, because the detail decides whether you get a subsidy.
What the Welsh numbers do and do not tell you
In September 2026 NatWest Cymru published an AI adoption report that included a headline about Wales. The press release says that four in five Welsh businesses using AI report improved efficiency. It also says 73 percent report more innovation and 59 percent report revenue growth.
Read the base carefully. Those percentages describe Welsh firms that already use AI, not Welsh firms in general. A business that tried AI and gave up is not in the sample, so the figures tell you that people who stuck with it tend to be pleased, which is a much weaker claim than "AI will lift your revenue". The page also does not give a sample size or when the survey was run, so we would not quote it as proof of anything. We covered why adoption figures from different surveys disagree in our piece on how many UK small businesses actually use AI and the same caution applies here.
What it does show is that a Welsh figure is starting to appear. If you have wondered whether anyone is measuring your corner of the country, someone now is, in at least a limited way.
Where the programmes stop
Training and workshops are good at one thing. They give you the vocabulary, show you what the tools can do and take the fear out of trying them. For a lot of owners that is all they need and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise.
What they cannot do is look at your business. A workshop room full of different businesses runs one agenda. It cannot tell you that your real drag is chasing late invoices, or that the quoting tool you have been eyeing would save you ten minutes a week while a different fix would save you ten hours. That takes someone looking at your own week, your own jobs and your own paperwork and working out where the hours actually go.
That is the gap the programmes leave and it is not a criticism of them. It is the difference between learning what a spreadsheet is and having someone build the one your business needs. If you want to find that bottleneck yourself first, the bottleneck audit costs nothing to run.
A sensible order to use all of this
Start with the call. Ring the Business Wales helpline and describe your business in two sentences. Ask what AI support is open to you now and ask about the awareness programme.
Do the short course next. The Business Wales e-learning gives you the basics and the safety points, which makes every later conversation shorter.
Book a workshop if you are in tourism or hospitality. It is free, it is practical and places are limited.
Only then think about paying. Once you know the basics, you can judge whether a subsidised course or an adviser is worth the money and you will be much harder to sell something you do not need.
If you want help with the step after these programmes, the training side of what we do is built for small teams. We also work with businesses across Wales, in person where it helps. Get in touch for a free consultation and we will start from your business, not from a brochure. If these programmes cover what you need, we will tell you so.