Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are revolutionizing today’s business practices; however, their adoption within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) raises serious trust, ethical, and technical issues. In this perspective paper, we introduce a structured, multi-phased framework, “SME-TEAM", positioning trust and ethics as a driving force for resilience, competitiveness, and sustainable innovation within the area of business analytics and SMEs.

Keywords

artificial intelligence, large language models, small and medium-sized enterprises, digital transformation, trust and ethics, business analytics

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

12-1-2026

Article Number

12

E-ISSN

30051460

Volume

2

Issue

1

Publication Title

npj Artificial Intelligence

Publisher

Nature

School

Centre for Securing Digital Futures

Funding Information

This work is partially supported by funding from the School of Science, Edith Cowan University, Australia.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Sarker, I. H., Janicke, H., Mohsin, A., & Maglaras, L. (2026). SME-TEAM: Leveraging trust and ethics for secure and responsible use of AI and LLMs in SMEs. npj Artificial Intelligence, 2, Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44387-025-00065-z

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1038/s44387-025-00065-z