While artificial intelligence is increasingly impacting industries, small businesses are coming forward to adopt these tools to stay relevant in this competitive space. Whether automating repetitive tasks or enhancing customer engagement, AI is becoming more than just a trend; it’s becoming an essential part of daily operations.
However, with the overwhelming number of platforms available, many entrepreneurs face the challenge of determining which tools will deliver measurable results.
Streamlining Client Management
Managing clients is one of the most time-consuming tasks of running a business. Honeybook, a clientflow and business management platform, has positioned itself as a solution designed specifically for freelancers and small business owners.
Honeybook offers a central system for proposals, invoicing, and scheduling. It also automates repetitive administrative tasks. The platform provides a single place to manage everything for businesses that often struggle to balance multiple client communications. This saves work hours each week and helps entrepreneurs appear organized and professional.
Consider a small design agency managing multiple client projects simultaneously. Instead of manually sending contracts, reminders, and invoices, the agency can use AI to streamline each step. This change allows more time for creative work and less for paperwork, which can directly impact profitability.
Automating Marketing & Content Creation
If operations are a business’s backbone, marketing is its voice. Blaze.AI has emerged as a powerful tool for companies that lack the resources to maintain a full-scale marketing department.
Blaze.AI, often called a “virtual marketer,” is an AI-powered platform that assists businesses in creating advanced marketing campaigns that would otherwise require dedicated staff. This empowers small and mid-sized firms to compete more efficiently with larger enterprises, from automated content writing to social media scheduling and analytics-driven optimization.
For instance, a local café can use AI to generate engaging posts highlighting new menu items, schedule them across platforms, and analyze which content resonates most with its audience. By automating these processes, the café maintains an active online presence and gains insights that inform future campaigns without hiring a marketing team.
AI Strategy for Small Businesses
While tools like Honeybook and Blaze.AI offer tangible solutions, strategy is what ensures long-term success. This is where Dr. Christina Inge, an educator, consultant, and thought leader in AI, plays a pivotal role.
“I’ve been using AI since before ChatGPT came out, and one of the things that I’ve noticed is that it makes it possible and affordable for small businesses to be able to, for instance, figure out how to set their pricing model, or it enables them to build a business,” says Dr. Inge.
Dr. Inge helps businesses use AI tools thoughtfully and ethically. Through training sessions, workshops, and consulting, she offers guidance on how to integrate AI into business practices meaningfully. Her work highlights that adopting AI is not about following trends but making a real difference for small businesses.
A retailer, for example, might be tempted to use AI tools just because competitors are doing so. With a thoughtful approach, that retailer would instead look at how AI could improve inventory management, personalize customer interactions, or simplify supply chain operations. This ensures the technology directly supports business goals.
Beyond individual case studies, Dr. Inge emphasizes that the real value of AI lies in helping small business owners reclaim their time and focus. “Once clients understand that AI isn’t replacing them but amplifying their productivity, the skepticism fades,” she explains. “It’s not about trusting a robot to run your business, it’s about having more hours back in your day to do the work only you can do.” This perspective underscores that AI’s role is less about automation for its own sake and more about enabling entrepreneurs to scale what they do best
Choosing the Right AI for Your Business
AI is no longer just for large companies with big budgets. Small businesses can now use tools that reduce costs, save time, and improve operations, marketing, and strategy efficiency. For small business owners, the best starting point is to identify their most pressing challenge, and AI is becoming beneficial for small businesses to address these challenges.
Small businesses across industries, ranging from professional services to home improvement, are embracing artificial intelligence at an unprecedented pace. What was once a “nice-to-have” tool is quickly becoming a competitive necessity. Automation now underpins everything from client communication to operational efficiency, helping lean teams punch far above their weight.
What Are AI Agents and Why Do They Matter?
At the core of the massive shift toward AI integration is the use of AI agents. They are digital workers capable of executing multi-step tasks with minimal oversight. AI agents can effectively manage customer inquiries, schedule appointments, run marketing campaigns, and supervise day-to-day operations. For many small business owners, this technology is like a key to freedom from repetitive but critical tasks, which means more time to focus on a strategy that will help their businesses grow faster.
Case Studies of AI in Action
The impact of AI integration is measurable. Some businesses are now launching fully functional websites within hours, while others are utilizing AI agents to answer up to 90% of missed calls. This is helping them capture leads that might otherwise have slipped away. Finance teams are reclaiming as much as two workdays per week, thanks to automated reporting and reconciliation. Affordable “agents for hire” models are also emerging, bringing enterprise-grade automation into reach for small and mid-sized businesses that once considered such tools out of budget.
Privacy and Data Security Considerations
With greater capabilities comes greater responsibility. While small businesses are increasingly embracing the power of AI, they must also ensure that these tools handle their sensitive data securely. This is especially important for industries like healthcare and finance, where compliance and confidentiality are paramount. The rise of private AI deployments among small and mid-size businesses shows a growing awareness that convenience should not come at the cost of security.
From Support to Strategy
As businesses streamline their repetitive and critical multi-step tasks with AI agents, experts have already predicted future advancements. According to them, these digital workers will evolve from being support tools to complete business assistants, prioritizing tasks, qualifying leads, and making strategic recommendations in real time. This evolution could render some outdated outsourcing models obsolete, empowering businesses to exercise control over their operations while reducing reliance on third parties.
Industry Innovators Leading the Charge
Companies like Alignable, Bill.com, Influx Technologies, and OpenPhone are among those driving AI adoption for small business ventures to streamline everyday tasks. They offer tools that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, proving that AI can be both powerful and approachable. As Daz, CEO of Flux AI at Influx Technologies, puts it: “You’ve got to utilize and jump on AI right now so you don’t get left behind. It’s a productivity enhancement—three, five, even ten times faster than before.”
Innovate or Stay Behind
Considering the power and impact of AI agents in small businesses, it can be said that ventures aiming to remain competitive in the present market should start experimenting with AI. Beginning with one or two AI-driven processes can deliver quick wins and build confidence. The key here is to treat AI as a partner at the workplace and not as a replacement for human teams. This technology should be utilized as a tool to enhance creativity, efficiency, and growth potential.
Small businesses are adopting AI more quickly than ever as competition gets fiercer by the day. According to BizBuySell, the rate of small businesses using AI has more than doubled, spiking from 26% (2023) to 60% (2025). As a result, entrepreneurs are treating AI as an integral tool for productivity, marketing, and client engagement. When small companies make the most of tech, the growth possibilities can even reach enterprise levels.
While there is a seemingly endless number of AI tools, here are some of the most creative and accessible options to help small businesses grow and streamline their day-to-day.
A Better Way to Schedule Using AI Assistants
There are plenty of tedious tasks that can hinder productivity. Managing an intense calendar is at the top of the list. Skej provides a sleek, affordable AI assistant that takes the scheduling process further than basic booking tools. Instead, Skej uses natural language to manage calendars, construct daily agendas, and coordinate across platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, and MS Teams.
Yet Skej offers more than just a tool. Users can give their assistant a name and interact as if it’s a member of the team. Skej co-founder Paul Canetti explains, “We’re trying to give everyone this superpower of having an assistant. It’s about liberating time to focus on higher-value activities.”
Justin Canetti pointed out one of the most surprising reactions from users: people often forget they’re talking to AI at all. “We’ve had users loop Skej into email threads with clients or coworkers, and no one realizes it’s not a real person,” he said. “The assistant takes over the conversation so naturally that it becomes part of the workflow without anyone needing to adjust.” That level of seamless interaction, he explained, is what makes Skej feel less like a tool and more like a team member.
The team is now exploring ways to connect Skej with CRMs and travel tools to handle even more tasks automatically. “With Skej, your assistant doesn’t just book meetings. It adapts to how you work,” said Paul.
AI Note-Taking’s CRM Dual Identity
Meetings can be the bane of some companies’ existence, but Fireflies.ai is offering a better way. The tool averages a 95% transcription accuracy, providing immediate summaries. Ultimately, it turns each call into a searchable knowledge base. The best part? Clients praise the brand for its affordability, with the claim that the service costs one-tenth as much as competing offerings.
Krish Ramineni, Fireflies CEO and co-founder, said the product quickly became more than a note-taker for many users. “People started using it as a second brain,” he said. “They’d go back to it instead of their CRM because every conversation, every client exchange, was already stored and searchable.” He noted that this shift has been especially helpful for consultants and recruiters, where words themselves are deliverables.
“It’s about building a searchable memory,” Ramineni added. “Fireflies turns every conversation into a resource.”
Many agencies like Hollywood Branded have centered their operations around Fireflies, recording hundreds of calls weekly.
Stacy Jones, CEO of Hollywood Branded, said Fireflies is fully embedded into their workflow. “Every single call gets recorded, unless it’s confidential. Then it’s pushed into HubSpot and our own proprietary system,” she said. “It helps us break down projects, create proposals, and manage follow-ups without needing another admin layer.” For a high-volume agency like theirs, she says, it’s more than a tool, and has become part of the infrastructure. “It’s the single biggest efficiency boost we’ve had in years,” said Jones.
Increasing Sales with AI
AI is helping sales teams answer the age-old question: how can you increase sales without adding new staff members and the salaries that come with them? Apollo.io has an answer with AI-driven lead research and messaging tools that can increase booked meetings by 42% and expand outreach performance by 35%.
Paula Urrutia, Apollo’s Director of Sales, says, “Focus on the low-hanging fruit to eliminate administrative burden so teams can focus on what they do best.”
Urrutia explains that Apollo’s real strength lies in its ability to remove guesswork. “We’re constantly refining our models so small teams can outperform much larger ones,” she said. “It’s not just about having the data. It’s about using it at the right time, with the right context.” She added that personalization at scale is no longer a luxury, it’s the new baseline for effective outreach. “If you give small businesses the right data and timing, they don’t need a huge sales team,” Urrutia emphasized.
The brand’s upcoming ApolloNEXT event offers additional insight into the way AI can reshape sales strategies.
Using Niche AI Models to Simplify Complexity
Sure, plenty of AI tools look to provide general solutions, but Revscale AI functions by building industry-specific agents geared toward B2B businesses, franchises, and brands with multiple locations. With customized small language models, lead generation, customer acquisition, and operations that run 24/7, it’s not necessary to have a tech background.
Revscale offers a “service as software” model that makes using it easy. Unnat Bak, the company’s founder, pointed out that Revscale’s agents are being adopted by agencies that need extra hands without adding headcount. “We’re seeing agencies white-label our AI agents to handle both internal tasks and client work,” he said. The company is even piloting a voice-first version of the product, so business owners can simply call their agent, ask a question, and get real-time answers without ever logging in.
Businesses can engage with the platform through natural language without dealing with malfunctioning dashboards.
AI Can Simplify Legal Help
Entrepreneurs tend to be business-savvy, not law experts. However, LegalZoom offers AI-powered tools that provide services like tracking 90,000 licensing jurisdictions to unpacking the meaning of legal documents with DocAssist. These features are built to lessen risks and save time.
Whether it’s NAICS code generation or AI name suggestions, LegalZoom mashes up machine efficiency with human oversight.
Erica Gartsbeyn, Vice President of Product Management & Business Operations at LegalZoom, shared that the company is focused on removing friction in every legal interaction. “We’re using AI not just to handle documents, but to anticipate what people need next. It’s like having a legal co-pilot that works behind the scenes so entrepreneurs can focus on building their business,” she said. The team is also exploring more integrations that make it even easier for non-lawyers to stay compliant without having to research every step.
“When the legal process becomes less intimidating, entrepreneurs are more likely to move forward,” said Gartsbeyn.
In addition, the brand’s partnership with Perplexity AI provides exclusive discounts for users seeking legal advice.
A Smarter Way to Manage Marketplace Listings
Given that BizBuySell claims to be the largest online marketplace for small business sales, the company is using generative AI to assist users in creating intriguing listings. These AI tools help sellers tweak descriptions so buyers can find the best-fitting opportunities quickly. BizBuySell’s president Bob House noted that AI is expected to “drive entirely new operational models for small businesses.”
According to House, the company is seeing strong early adoption of its generative AI tools, especially for writing listings. “We’re helping sellers create clearer, more compelling descriptions in less time,” he explained. That’s a big win for busy owners who aren’t professional marketers but want their listings to stand out. House added that the real value isn’t just speed, but also the confidence sellers gain when the platform helps them communicate their business story more effectively.
“Early feedback has been incredibly positive,” House said. “Sellers feel more equipped to market their business, and that’s a big step forward.”
Bridging the AI Gap for Everyday Entrepreneurs
One of the most accessible tools for small business owners dipping their toes into AI is Verizon’s Business Assistant. Designed to help entrepreneurs automate customer interactions and capture new leads, it acts like a virtual receptionist that never sleeps. From handling incoming calls to freeing up precious hours in the day, it’s a practical entry point for business owners who want real results without a steep learning curve.
Chris Shank, Vice President of Small Business Sales at Verizon, said this kind of AI can help small businesses punch above their weight. “The more familiar they become, the more they start to see AI as something that allows them to amplify their reach without proportionally increasing their spend,” he shared. That mindset shift, he added, is one of the most important factors in long-term adoption.
“They’re starting to see AI not just as a tool, but as a competitive edge,” Shank said. “And that’s when real transformation starts.”
Start Small, Scale Smart
AI isn’t about doing everything at once. It’s about finding the first task you can offload, and doing it well. Whether it’s writing sales emails, managing a packed calendar, or following up after meetings, these tools help you reclaim time and sharpen your focus. The best part is that you don’t need to be a tech expert to get started.
Every hour saved is an opportunity to grow, create, or simply breathe a little easier. For small business owners, that’s life-changing.
When it comes to building a business, laying out the blueprints to get the gears turning behind the scenes often seems much more complicated than it needs to be. As society increasingly accepts and adopts the numerous innovations of the digital age, various professional sectors have an opportunity to benefit from technological offerings.
Sitting at the top of the long list of advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) remains one of the most prominent. Previously perceived as too intricate and expensive, novel AI developments could empower compact crews in achieving tasks that once required expansive departments.
With AI’s swift shift from a niche, internet-based creation to a necessary resource for small businesses, company owners can boost their ventures in nearly every field, including data processing, hiring, and marketing.
Leveraging AI in Lead Generation and Client Engagement
Following the business industry’s transition into progressive digitization, many startups and small organizations are considering turning to automation tools to manage relationships and interactions with customers, while also enhancing lead generation.
Solutions like Make.com or chatbotbuilder.ai enable growing companies to simplify and refine tedious tasks, including initial correspondence, follow-ups, and lead qualification, with fixed staff.
One organization benefiting from the advancement is Inkyma, an AI consulting agency that once operated as a marketing firm. Upon adopting AI into its internal operations, the business “saw a 60% decrease in workload and costs.”
Audrey Kerchner, the company’s founder, also noted that the transformation enabled the team to “pivot into helping others do the same.”
Smart Recruitment Processes With AI
While customer relationship management (CRM) and lead generation represent one area benefiting from AI, many businesses in the talent acquisition industry are also pondering the innovation’s potential advantages. Recruiting remains a significant obstacle for small companies looking for meaningful growth. The hiring process becomes increasingly aggravating when resources are limited.
AI-powered platforms like Workcraft aim to combat this conundrum by screening applicants based on each one’s authentic capabilities, rather than reviewing candidates who overuse technical jargon in their resumes as compensation for skills they may lack.
Sharing how the smart hiring business’s system examines real experience instead of focusing on a completed application’s keyword usage, Workcraft founder Janet Paul believes it’s critical for the team to “look at what [candidates] actually did” at their previous job. She poses the integral query that all recruiters consider when evaluating an applicant’s background: “Does that align with our criteria?”
Modernizing Document Processing and Operations
For small businesses regularly handling data-heavy duties, certain AI tools can enhance document processing and operational efficiency. Companies like Parseur relied on manual data extraction before integrating an AI-driven document parser into their practices.
Striving to guarantee that each user’s information is consistently managed with top-level security and care, the organization aims to set a new benchmark for data privacy in a progressively complex era of business processing and operations.
With an AI document processor, law, real estate, and other industries may find the automation to be extremely useful. Processing tasks like inquiries or contracts can save human employees hours each week.
Parseur’s co-founder Sylvestre Dupont states that businesses should “treat AI as a groundbreaking technology” similarly to how society views “the internet or electricity revolutions.”
Parseur is fully compliant with major data protection regulations, including California CCPA, EU GDPR, Singapore PDPA, Swiss FADP, and UK GDPR.
Teaching and Treating AI as a Business Team Member
While some entrepreneurial experts showcase concerns about AI’s development, companies like Hello Alice demonstrate how the technology can be a team player.
Carolyn Rodz, co-founder of Hello Alice, perceives training AI through a unique lens: “If you could wave your magic wand and bring in the most intelligent talent to sit next to you and help you solve a problem, what would you be asking it?”
Serving as a platform that supports more than 1.5 million small businesses, the digital program envisions AI as an authentically onboarded and talented employee rather than an adopted technological product.
Embracing AI Innovation in Legal and Creator Spaces
For industries led by both legality and creativity, implementing AI into a company’s daily operations may seem daunting on the surface. At The Vision Catalyst, founder and owner Sara Celotto witnesses how distinguished sectors adopt the novel innovation. Lawyers, who were once skeptical of AI’s offerings due to concerns of confidentiality, now view the technology as essential.
Conversely, content creators have taken a liking to AI integration, specifically in video production and CRM automation. Celotto bears in mind that “it’s getting harder and harder to get away from AI,” observing that “it’s integrated in every platform you’re probably paying for.”
A Future Where AI Supports Small Business Growth
From recruiting and document operations to customer service and marketing, AI boasts the potential to be more than just an inconsequential resource. Cementing its success through the testimonials of early adopters, AI saves time and costs, making it an ideal virtual assistant for a boosted strategic edge.
Looking ahead, these intelligent tools could deliver the accelerated business acumen needed for small companies to compete against larger enterprises soon.
According to a recent report, long-standing small businesses in modern California may struggle to thrive the way they have in the past.
Whether a current resident, visitor, or small business, California has long been known for being one of the country’s most expensive states, and this became especially true following the COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported a story highlighting small business owner Karen Kropp and the struggles that have led her to close her bookstore, Book Rack.
L.A. Times reporter Marisa Gerber wrote, “After 40 years — the last half under Kropp’s ownership — the beloved used-book store tucked between a hot pot restaurant and a chiropractor’s office in Arcadia is closing this week.” She continued, “Slowed down by the consumer shift to online shopping and further decimated by cratering sales during the pandemic, the shop held on by a thread in the months since Kropp cashed out her life insurance policy to keep it afloat.”
Gerber also recalled when Kropp would say things such as, “When you’re in a bookstore, you have to be a dreamer,” and the “miracle is coming.”
The L.A. Times report spotlighted the damper on the owner’s sentiments, adding, “But the miracle never came, and Kropp, who turns 79 later this year, knew that even if she couldn’t really afford to, it was time to retire.” According to Gerber, “She [Kropp] plans to live off her monthly Social Security check — around $1,200 after insurance premiums are deducted — and can’t afford to stay in Southern California. Instead, she will move in with her younger sister in Albuquerque once she finishes clearing out the shop.”
“Kropp’s situation mirrors those of many aging small-business owners who, unless they have a relative eager to take over,” the report added, “are faced with complex questions about their legacy and finances.”
Utilizing a tool from the University of Massachusetts Boston, one estimate found that “Someone in Kropp’s situation — a single renter living in L.A. County — needs $2,915 a month to cover their basic necessities,” according to the report.
The director of the retirement security program at the UC Berkeley labor center, Nari Rhee, added that the estimated amount is “basically twice the average Social Security benefit in California.” Rhee continued to remark on how numerous elderly Californians have fallen victim to homelessness and poverty.
After years of working at the bookstore, Kropp purchased it in the 2000s, taking over a business that routinely brought in over $10,000. However, the meteoric rise of Amazon alongside the pandemic changed everything.
Gerber’s report stated, “Then, during the shutdowns, sales dropped to almost zero. Bills still came due, as did the shop’s rent and the fee for a storage unit where she kept overflow books, which together cost about $2,000 a month.” The report continues, “Sales eventually crept back up but never fully recovered; now, she said, it sometimes takes two days before sales hit $200.”
A recent sales analysis from GoBankingRates Found that even a $150,000 annual salary is considered “lower middle class” income in many of California’s high-cost cities.
California’s rent and state policies have been scrutinized by the L.A. Times before, such as when a 40-year-old attorney who moved to Florida from California, Krystal Meyer, was “driven out, she said, by financial pressures, homelessness, and a deep frustration with California’s COVID-19 restrictions.”
Meyer reportedly told the Times, “My salary increases were not outpacing my rental increases… I was losing money every year.” Although Meyer had already been driven out of one area of California following a confrontation with a machete-wielding homeless person, it was California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic that finally forced her to relocate to Florida.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, convened her Small Business Cabinet to continue to help drive an economic agenda that will prioritize the needs of small businesses in the city. Bass established the cabinet to help serve as a platform for dialogue and collaboration between business owners and the city government, which will help make sure that the city is responsive to the needs of more than 450,000 small businesses. The mayor’s intent to help the companies of Los Angeles proves that she is committed to helping the city improve and flourish in the process and will support the goal of building a thriving business economy in Los Angeles.
In January, Mayor Bass said, “Business owners are feeling the challenges of rising costs, the lingering impacts of the entertainment industry strikes and bureaucratic requirements.” She also states, “We will continue to do all we can to be responsive and cut through red tape at City Hall. We also know that opening Los Angeles for business also means confronting homelessness and increasing public safety. Last year, we brought more than 21,000 Angelenos inside, and homicides and violent crime were down compared to 2022. We have made progress, but there is still more work to be done.”
The members of the Small Business Cabinet include a myriad of representatives and directors, including Maria Contreras-Sweet, the 24th U.S. Small Business Administrator; Stephen Cheung, CEO and President of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation; Julie Clowes, Director of the Small Business Administration LA. Also included were Angela Gibson-Shaw, CEO And President of the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce; Kim Hunter, CEO of LAGRANT Communications; Lilly Rocha, CEO and Executive Director of the Latino Restaurant Association; and Maria Salinas, CEO and President of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
Stephen Cheung of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation stated that Mayor Bass “knows that supporting business means addressing all of the issues that impact businesses, from homelessness to housing to public safety.” Cheung added that Bass “is continuing to make real change in the city, and the Small Business Cabinet is pleased to continue supporting her work and our shared priorities to further open Los Angeles for business.”
In her first year in office, Mayor Bass committed to helping provide businesses with the best possible support. This included establishing a small business policy team within the Mayor’s Office of Business and Economic Development and developing a permanent Al Fresco outdoor dining program, helping deliver two small business summits that drew 2,000 attendees. She also prioritized impacted businesses during emergency responses and issued Executive Directive 4 to help support small business creation, growth, and development in Los Angeles. Implementing these practices, such as providing virtual and in-person counter services for businesses looking to open or expand, helped bolster the Los Angeles community, with more than 20,000 businesses opened within the last year.
