eBay has launched a £3m programme developed in collaboration with OpenAI to develop the skillset of small UK companies with entry to the newest customized AI productiveness instruments and coaching.
The AI Activate programme is open to all companies that promote on eBay, with as much as 10,000 to be onboarded this yr. Its worth consists of 12 months of ChatGPT Enterprise licences for 10,000 companies, plus customized GPTs from eBay, tailor-made coaching throughout a number of enterprise areas and ongoing help from a devoted eBay group.
With small companies accounting for three-fifths of UK employment and round half of turnover within the UK non-public sector, equipping them with the expertise and expertise to compete is essential for progress.
Whereas 69% of on-line companies really feel excited (43%) or curious (26%) about AI’s potential, many are nonetheless understanding easy methods to make greatest use of the expertise for them.
“The difficulty is not whether or not companies ought to undertake AI – it’s how shortly they’ll begin earlier than their opponents do,” says Eve Williams, normal supervisor at eBay UK.
“These companies and economies that don’t spend money on AI now danger being left behind. That’s why eBay is investing to place world-class AI within the fingers of small companies and entrepreneurs, with no cost to them.
“We wish British small companies to win nationally and globally which signifies that the newest AI instruments can’t be the protect of massive enterprise. They need to be within the fingers of each small enterprise in Britain.”
The coaching programme has been designed utilizing insights from vendor analysis and interviews, which recognized the most effective alternatives for AI to liberate time and enhance productiveness. These embody periods on managing monetary evaluation, creating promotional campaigns and efficient analysis.
eBay is the primary on-line market to offer OpenAI’s instruments and related coaching without spending a dime to its small enterprise prospects. Coaching will happen each nearly and through in-person periods in 2026.
“Small companies energy the UK economic system, accounting for over 99% of the UK’s corporations, but for too lengthy they haven’t had the instruments to drive will increase in productiveness the best way bigger corporations do,” mentioned Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist at OpenAI.
“This collaboration might change that. By placing world-class AI instruments within the fingers of 10,000 UK entrepreneurs, we’re investing within the UK’s financial engine. If we need to shut the productiveness hole, that is the place to begin.”
Throughout the eBay platform, greater than 10 million sellers worldwide have used eBay’s generative AI instruments to create over 300 million listings.
