TallyMarks Consulting hosted a focused session at the Aiwan-e-Iqbal Complex in Lahore to help small and medium-sized enterprises adopt practical AI tools and workflows. The AI Now Simplified for SMEs programme drew SME owners, department heads, business leaders and members of academia from across the city to explore how AI for SMEs can be applied immediately to everyday business needs.
Dr. Syed Sohail H. Naqvi, Director EdTech at TallyMarks Consulting and Chairman of Knowledge Streams, delivered the keynote, framing AI adoption as a matter of national competitiveness and urging organisations to act. Tanveer Ahmad Sheikh, Senior Vice President of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, emphasised how AI for SMEs can address productivity pressures, reduce costs and help firms compete in tighter markets.
Anas Wahab, Chief AI Officer at TallyMarks Consulting, presented a practical roadmap for immediate AI adoption, while trainer Shahmeer Maqbool and co-trainer Ammaz Ahmad led hands-on demonstrations. Participants worked with tools including Gemini, ChatGPT, Canva AI and Google Vids to see how AI for SMEs can streamline marketing, customer support and content creation.
The sessions placed strong focus on prompt engineering, teaching attendees how to give clearer instructions to generate better outputs for proposals, reports and quotations. Advanced use cases covered during the day included AI agents, recruitment bots, invoice processing and legal drafting, illustrating concrete ways AI for SMEs can reduce manual workloads.
A TallyMarks Consulting spokesperson summed up the approach simply: ‘If you can send a WhatsApp message, you can start using AI.’ The firm encouraged SMEs to begin with small steps such as trying a free tool, drafting a business message or social post with AI, and identifying opportunities to cut operational costs while improving responsiveness.
The programme concluded with a practical action plan aimed at making local SMEs faster and more competitive by empowering employees with AI tools rather than replacing them. Attendees left with clear next steps to integrate AI for SMEs into everyday operations and strengthen their position in Pakistan’s evolving market.
