Translating between the four languages, properly
Machine translation is the most obviously useful AI task for a Swiss company, and the one where the quality difference between careless and careful use is largest.
A Swiss SME writing to customers in German, French and Italian has the clearest AI use case there is. It is also the one where a mediocre result is hardest to detect, because the person sending it usually cannot read the output as well as the recipient can.
What has genuinely changed
Machine translation between these three languages has been good for years. What is new is that a model can be told the context: this is a payment reminder to a long-standing customer, keep it polite but firm, use the formal address.
That instruction is the whole difference. Translation without it produces correct sentences in the wrong register, which is exactly the failure a Swiss business relationship notices.
The three instructions worth giving every time
The register. Formal or informal address, and whether this is a first contact or a fifteen-year relationship. Romance languages carry this differently from German and the default is often wrong.
The variety. Swiss French and Swiss German usage differ from French and German usage in small, noticeable ways — numbers, some vocabulary, the conventions of a business letter. Say « Swiss » explicitly; models default to the larger market.
The terms that must not change. Your product names, legal terms, the exact designation on an invoice. List them and say they stay as written.
The check that costs nothing
Ask for the translation back into the original language, from the translation alone. Read that.
Where the meaning drifted, you will see it in your own language, without needing to judge the quality of the other one. It is not a perfect test and it catches the errors that actually matter.
What still needs a person
Anything that binds you: contracts, terms, formal notices, anything a lawyer wrote. And anything where the tone carries the message rather than the words — an apology, a difficult negotiation, a condolence.
For the other ninety per cent, this is the task where a Swiss SME gets the most value per franc spent, and it has been available and under-used for a year.