A fifth-generation family business and a founder-led business might appear to have very little in common. Yet both are currently wrestling with the same question. How do we embrace artificial intelligence without losing what has made us successful in the first place? The answer may determine which family businesses thrive over the next decade and which slowly lose relevance.
Businesses Built to Last
Many of the businesses surveyed in Deloitte’s Family Business Technology Transformation 2026 research have already survived multiple generations of ownership. These are not start-ups experimenting with AI for the first time. They are organisations that have successfully navigated wave after wave of technological change.
Learning to Adapt, Not Just Adopt
Over the past century, family businesses have adapted to telephones, calculators, computers, fax machines, email, the internet, cloud technology and mobile communications. The businesses that survived were rarely those that adopted every innovation first. They were the ones that learned how to evaluate, implement and integrate change without losing sight of what made them successful in the first place.
The Adoption Paradox
One of the reasons AI adoption appears so high (86%, according to Deloitte) while digital transformation lags behind (only 48% report an active strategy) is that individual adoption and organisational transformation are not the same. At a recent leadership group session in the UK, one business owner reported using AI daily, while another had never considered using it to convert photographs of flipchart brainstorming sheets into structured reports. Ten minutes later, she was asking what else might be possible.
How Technological Revolutions Begin
This is how most technological revolutions begin. Individuals experiment first, driven by word-of-mouth and personal endorsement. Confidence grows. Organisational change follows much later.
Why Hesitation Is Actually Stewardship
For family businesses, that second stage requires leadership alignment, governance, investment decisions, data security reviews and clarity around intellectual property. What appears to be hesitation is often simply responsible stewardship.
LEGO’s Lesson in Reinvention
Family businesses may be better positioned for AI than many commentators assume. They have often been practising structured transformation for generations, balancing innovation with stewardship. Household family business names such as LEGO demonstrate why this matters. Having faced severe financial difficulties in the early 2000s, the company successfully reinvented itself by embracing new technologies, digital experiences and changing customer expectations.
The lesson is clear: longevity is not achieved by resisting change, but by adapting to it while remaining true to your purpose.
Steve Rigby on AI, Automation and the Long View
Take Steve Rigby, Co-Chief Executive of the Rigby Group, a second-generation, family-owned technology and investment business approaching fifty years old. Rigby describes AI as one of the biggest opportunities and challenges facing organisations today, yet his focus is not solely on the technology itself. Alongside investing in AI businesses, the Group is deploying AI internally to automate repetitive work and free people to focus on higher-value activities. Crucially, he also emphasises the importance of cybersecurity, workforce adaptation and taking a long-term view of change.
That perspective is familiar to many successful family enterprises. The technology may change, but the responsibility remains the same: to leave the business stronger for the next generation than it was inherited from the previous one.
Why Smaller Family Businesses Can Move Faster
While larger and more mature family businesses bring experience and governance, younger family businesses often possess something equally powerful: speed. Many founder-led and second-generation businesses are still developing the governance frameworks, ownership structures and decision-making processes that more mature family enterprises have spent decades refining. Family, ownership and business interests are often closely intertwined, which can sometimes create confusion around priorities and accountability.
Clarity Unlocks Speed
However, once there is clarity around purpose, ownership and direction, these businesses can move remarkably quickly. They have fewer layers of management, shorter decision-making chains and often a greater willingness to experiment.
AI as the Great Equaliser
This is where I believe AI presents a unique opportunity. For decades, larger organisations benefited from economies of scale. They could hire larger teams, employ specialists and absorb the cost of major transformation programmes. Smaller businesses often had to compete with fewer resources.
Democratising Capability
AI is changing that dynamic. In many respects, AI is democratising capability. Smaller family businesses can now access knowledge, analysis, content creation, research and operational support that previously required entire departments or significant external investment.
Their Advantage Is Speed, Not Scale
I am working with family businesses that are seizing this opportunity. They are embedding AI into sales, marketing, operations, reporting and customer service. Their leadership teams are aligned, decisions are made quickly and there are fewer barriers between idea and implementation.
AI may ultimately prove to be one of the few technological revolutions where smaller family businesses can outmanoeuvre much larger competitors. Their advantage is not scale. It is speed.
The Next Generation Leadership Challenge
The impact of AI extends far beyond productivity. It is also reshaping succession planning.
The Next Generation Already Gets It
According to PwC’s Global NextGen Survey, nearly three-quarters of next-generation family business leaders (73%) see AI as a significant force for transformation. That should not surprise us. The next generation has grown up in a digital world and often brings a different perspective on technology, innovation and data-driven decision making.
What the Next-Gen CEO Will Need
The future family business CEO will still need the qualities that have always mattered: judgement, resilience, commercial awareness and leadership. However, they will also need digital fluency and the ability to understand how emerging technologies can create competitive advantage and shape the future direction.
The most successful next-generation leaders will not necessarily be technology experts. They will be leaders who know which questions to ask, which opportunities to pursue and how to balance innovation with stewardship.
Businesses That Think in Generations, Not Quarters
Family businesses are unique because they rarely think in quarters. They think in generations.
For many owners, the question is not whether AI can improve productivity this year. It is whether the business they hand to the next generation will be stronger, more resilient and more relevant than the one they inherited. That is a responsibility few organisations carry in quite the same way.
The Tools Change. The Responsibility Doesn’t.
The future will undoubtedly belong to businesses that embrace technology, but technology alone will not determine success. Leadership, stewardship, adaptability and a relentless focus on creating value for customers will remain just as important as they have always been.
The tools may change. The responsibility does not.
