Bridging the Gap in Business Support with AI-Powered Assistance

Shareit Biz, founded by Grainne and Derek Bannon, is dedicated to improving the business support ecosystem by connecting entrepreneurs with the right funding and resources. Many businesses, particularly underrepresented entrepreneurs, struggle to navigate the complex landscape of support services. Despite the availability of funding and growth opportunities, a lack of clear guidance and accessibility results in underutilised resources and missed chances for business growth. Shareit Biz aims to address this challenge by leveraging AI to create a more efficient, inclusive, and accessible platform for business support.

The Challenge

The disconnect between businesses seeking growth and providers offering funding and support creates inefficiencies in the ecosystem. Key challenges include:

  • Lack of accessibility – Many entrepreneurs struggle to find and understand available funding and support opportunities.
  • Underutilised resources – Providers offer extensive support, but without effective matchmaking, these resources remain unused.
  • Complex navigation – Businesses often find the process of identifying relevant opportunities time-consuming and overwhelming.
  • Data limitations – Existing data collection methods made it difficult to generate insights about user engagement, business demographics, and platform effectiveness

The Solution

To address these challenges, Shareit Biz engaged the Hartree Centre Northern Ireland Hub to review their platform and data. Hartree’s team conducted an in-depth assessment to determine how ShareitBiz could extract valuable insights from their existing data and enhance their platform’s functionality. Key recommendations included:

  • Engagement – Improving data capture and structuring to make insights more accessible and actionable.
  • Refining user engagement tracking – Implementing clearer categories for user interactions to measure content effectiveness.
  • AI-driven chatbot development – Recommending an advanced AI chatbot to provide real-time, personalised guidance to businesses seeking funding and support.
  • Automation strategies – Suggesting cloud-based solutions (AWS, Heroku, Zapier) to streamline data processing and chatbot integration.

By leveraging these insights, ShareitBiz is developing an AI-powered chatbot that will:

  • Enhance user navigation – Utilising AI to accurately understand user needs and guide them to relevant funding opportunities and support services.
  • Improve efficiency – Streamlining the process of connecting businesses with appropriate resources, reducing the time and effort required to access support.
  • Act as a 24/7 point of contact – Providing continuous assistance and engagement, improving user experience and accessibility.
Grainne Bannon

Quote from Grainne Bannon

"Derek and I worked with the Hartree Centre Northern Ireland hub and in particular with Lorraine, Jade and Abi. Each engagement with had with them was both resourceful and professional. The hub team went to great lengths to understand our 'start up’, from getting to know us as founders to the technical requirements of the IT platform. Jade and Abi went above and beyond the project. Both gave us a better understanding of the data and how it could be beneficial to our business.As non-tech founders they gave us a technical road map and advised us on what technical tools would be best for scaling our business. I have since recommended the hub to other Entrepreneurs who have reached out the hub for support and have benefited from doing so."

Grainne Bannon, Founder of ShareitBiz


Project Impact

The AI chatbot and platform improvements will revolutionise how businesses interact with support services, leading to significant benefits:

  • Increased accessibility – Entrepreneurs, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, will find it easier to navigate funding opportunities.
  • Better resource utilisation – Ensuring that available support services reach those who need them most.
  • Enhanced user experience – A seamless and intuitive interface will make the business support ecosystem more user-friendly and efficient.
  • Smarter decision-making – Improved data structuring enables Shareit Biz to generate meaningful insights about user engagement and business needs.

Further Information

This work was completed as one of our data projects. Our projects are up to 12 weeks in duration. We will work alongside your business to scope your project, demonstrate proof of concept, and explore options to deploy it within your business. If you would like to learn more about the Hartree NI Hub and our Programme, please get in touch with us at: info@hartreeni.uk

Our Impact on UK Industry and Society

The Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation enables businesses to acquire the skills, knowledge and technical capability required to adopt digital technologies like super computing, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. The SME Engagement Hubs play a key role in offering targeted support for business challenges in their region, creating value and generating economical and societal impact for the UK.