Alex Buckley, Business Development Administrator, McNally Family Farm; Vanessa Hartley, Head of Google Ireland; and Derek McDermott, Director of Everyday Lending, Bank of Ireland, pictured at the announcement of the new partnership between Bank of Ireland and Google. McNally Family Farm is one of the Irish SMEs featured as a case study in the new SME AI Academy.

Bank of Ireland and Google offering 10,000 AI scholarships to small businesses

Published: Wed 15 Jul 2026, 12:02 PM

Last updated: Wed 15 Jul 2026, 12:25 PM

As part of a new partnership, Bank of Ireland and Google have announced that they are to provide up to 10,000 AI scholarships to Bank of Ireland's Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers.

The fully funded Google AI Professional Certificate scholarships are available to Bank of Ireland’s SME customers through the ‘Grow with Google’ programme.

The partnership is aimed to help Irish businesses build capabilities and prepare for the evolving regulatory landscape, including compliance obligations under the EU AI Act (which comes into effect from August 2, 2026).

With the EU AI Act applicable for businesses of all sizes, SMEs are under increasing pressure to understand compliance requirements and responsibly deploy their AI.

To facilitate the initiative, a new SME AI Academy is set up on Bank of Ireland’s thinkbusiness.ie platform. It also features practical guides for SMEs and case studies on early AI adopters. Participants will also receive three months’ extended access to Google AI Pro, supporting continued experimentation and adoption.

Designed for SMEs, Google AI Professional Certificate is delivered online on Coursera. It requires about 10 hours of commitment, and is delivered in one-hour modules through a flexible, self-paced format. Learners complete 20 hands-on projects, leaving the course with a tangible, ready-to-use digital toolkit tailored to their specific business.

Commenting on the new partnership, Derek McDermott, director of Everyday Lending, Bank of Ireland said: “SMEs need accessible, user-friendly tools to build their AI capability and confidence. We look forward to working with Google to deliver this support to businesses across Ireland over the coming months.”

Vanessa Hartley, head of Google, Ireland, said that Small and medium-sized businesses are fundamental to Ireland's economy, creating jobs, driving innovation and strengthening communities across the country.

“Their success will be critical to ensuring Ireland thrives in the AI era. At Google, we've been supporting Irish SMEs with digital skills for more than 20 years and we are committed to helping businesses build the AI skills they need to continue to succeed," she added.

The SME AI Academy is now live and SMEs acn apply for the AI scholarship on ThinkBusiness.ie.