Upwork Research Reveals SMBs Accelerate Growth with AI and Flexible Talent as Upwork’s Business Plus Offering Adds New AI Tools

Upwork Business Plus introduces Uma Recruiter alongside access to the top 1% of talent on the Upwork Marketplace, enabling faster, smarter hiring

Upwork, the world’s human and AI-powered work marketplace, released a study by the Upwork Research Institute revealing how small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) endured the geopolitical, labor market, and macroeconomic shocks of 2025, and, in doing so, ignited innovation and growth. To support SMBs through these challenges, the Upwork Marketplace introduced new features to its Business Plus offering, including exclusive access to Uma Recruiter, a new always-on, AI-powered hiring agent that reviews talent profiles and delivers top matches in under six hours, enabling faster, smarter hiring decisions for SMBs.

The research study, The Key to Growth: How Small Businesses Turn Disruption into an Edge, surveyed nearly 500 SMB C-level executives, vice presidents, and directors to examine how SMBs–those employing between 10 and 499 people–navigated the same market volatility as their larger peers.

“SMBs learned defensive strategies alone were not enough to withstand disruption,” said Dr. Gabby Burlacu, senior research manager of the Upwork Research Institute. “Our research shows the SMBs that played offense by embracing flexible talent, AI tools, and continuous experimentation have positioned themselves for adaptability and long-term growth in the face of whatever uncertainty and disruption comes next.”

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Key findings from the report show that highly confident SMBs are:

• Innovating through disruption: Confidence among SMB leaders more sharply fluctuated throughout the year compared to leaders of other company sizes, dropping from 51% in Q1 2025 to 47% in Q2, then rebounding to 58% in Q3, mirroring similar swings in their willingness to innovate across talent models and technology. Yet for the 47% of leaders that maintained steady confidence throughout the year, commitment to AI, flexible talent, and bold experimentation never wavered.
• Harnessing AI to drive operational agility: SMBs that avoided the Q2 confidence dip were twice as likely to have fully implemented AI across front-office (27%) and back-office (23%) functions to optimize sales, marketing, finance, and operations. Thirty percent retooled operating models for AI, adopting an AI-first mindset when designing processes.
• Leveraging flexible, skilled talent: Thirty-one percent of SMB leaders relied on flexible talent to tap into specialized skills. Job posts from SMBs seeking AI expertise rose 44% on the Upwork Marketplace between January and July 2025, indicating strong demand for AI-proficient talent.
• Unlocking tangible value with AI: Supplemental research conducted in collaboration with Zoom found that when SMBs use AI to scale, 93% report an increase in revenue—in fact, 41% report increases exceeding 10%. Eighty-two percent report AI-related cost reductions, and 91% saw year-over-year ROI from their AI investments.
• Embedding experimentation: Twenty-three percent of SMB leaders designated innovation and experimentation as core organizational capabilities, approaching disruption and change as opportunities to try something new.

The research arrives alongside a refreshed version of Upwork Business Plus, the Upwork Marketplace’s premium offering designed to help SMBs scale faster. With Business Plus, clients now gain instant access to the top 1% of talent on the Upwork Marketplace across more than 125 categories of work, as well as built-in tools for performance tracking, contract management, and team collaboration. Business Plus clients also gain access to Uma Recruiter, an always-on hiring agent that understands business needs and provides AI-powered shortlisting to match clients with top expert talent.

“Most owners and operators at SMBs wear many hats, from strategist to marketer to the doer, to build and grow their businesses,” said Dave Bottoms, general manager of the Upwork Marketplace. “For growing teams, it’s no different—leaders are juggling priorities, patching process gaps, and trying to bring the right skills to bear on their business challenges. Business Plus gives them instant access to pre-vetted talent and an AI-guided hiring experience that matches top talent on the Upwork Marketplace with a client’s business objectives, so SMBs can hire faster and focus on innovating to drive business impact.”

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