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Already, a majority of small businesses are using AI for a wide range of purposes, said Jordan Crenshaw, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Engagement Center. Last year, 58% of small firms nationwide reported using generative artificial intelligence, an increase from 40% in 2024 and 23% in 2023, he told lawmakers. But the real kicker, he added, is that 82% of small businesses that reported using AI had increased their staff headcounts over the past year. “These businesses are not using AI to replace people,” Crenshaw said. “They’re using it to help employees focus on high value work that requires judgment, creativity and relationships.”

So what’s the best way for a small business to deploy AI?

• Focus on what you’re not doing now, that could increase sales. “So many small businesses don’t have a website,” observed Chike Aguh, the head of innovation and strategy at the Kapor Center, which promotes inclusion in tech. “So many small businesses are not advertising in any way, shape or form because they can’t hire a designer. AI can make those things happen.” It’s not just about a web site, but about a mind set. “Small businesses need to think about, ‘What is not happening in my business that AI can help make happen,’ versus, ‘What is the thing that's happening now that potentially could be done by someone else?’” Aguh told lawmakers.
• Start with something that needs to be fixed. “I always advise businesses to start with the problem that is most at hand. What is the thing that bothers them day to day? That's where to get started,” said France Hoang, the founder and CEO of AI firm BoodleBox, which creates online spaces where teams in education, law or business can use AI tools securely and collaboratively. He cited a small coffee company owner in Detroit, Tekeyah Gaines, who he said has used AI to more accurately price her products, and also to bolster her marketing footprint. The result, Hoang said, is that Gaines’ average orders have risen from $38 to $47.
• Invest in training workers on Al and listen to their ideas. Instead of replacing workers with AI, Aguh said, businesses should instead be investing in training their workers on how best to use new AI tools, and should even be consulting their staff on how and where to put AI to use.
• Think of AI as a force multiplier. “AI is a force multiplier that helps small businesses do more with limited time, staff and resources,’’ said Crenshaw. For example, he said, “A retailer can use AI to understand demand and personalize marketing. A restaurant can improve scheduling and inventory. A professional services firm can automate routine drafting and research. A manufacturer can reduce waste and improve operations.”
• Make your back office more efficient. Aguh said small businesses are already finding AI useful for back office tasks such as accounting, tax payments, bookkeeping, and marketing and sales lead generation.
• Use AI to simplify onboarding and training for new staff. Anthony Qaiyum, the owner of Chicago-based Merz Apothecary, told committee members he recently used AI voice transcription and writing tools to create a multi-month onboarding program for a new hire. “She later told me it was the clearest roadmap she’d ever received when starting a new job,” he said.
• Make sure you pick the right AI tool for the job. There are a wide array of AI models now available for low to no cost online, with different strengths and weaknesses. It’s important for users to learn which models are the best for the job they want AI to tackle. “It is tempting to believe that everything is a nail and that is amenable to the AI hammer,” said Aguh. “Helping these small business leaders pick the exact hammer for the exact right nail is so important. It might be Claude, it might be ChatGPT.”
• Find a secure AI system that you can trust. The more candid a business owner can be with an AI system about internal finances and sensitive data, the more useful AI models can be to companies. So it’s important to find an AI system the business owner feels is secure. “AI is only as good as the information you put into it, the context. A lot of businesses are fearful of putting their proprietary data in. That's unfortunate because that's how you get the best results from AI,” Hoang said. “Find a platform where you feel the privacy and security allow you to use your data.”
• Look for AI accelerators, coaches and government-funded training. The experts agreed that more AI literacy programs will be needed to properly educate entrepreneurs on how best to utilize new models, and emphasized there are already some such resources available, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Basics program. “For those of us who are athletes at any point in our lives, you didn’t read a book on how to do a jump shot or throw a football. You did it in the field, with a coach,” Aguh said. “AI is ironically showing the need for more work in the field, in the place of work…classes are good. Real life experience is better.”
• Consider paying for AI if necessary. There’s been so much progress and competition in AI in the last few years that there’s an abundance of tools available online free of charge, but some of the more advanced and valuable tools still come at a price. Those may be worth paying for, depending on the job. “Basic AI is cheap and it is everywhere,” Hoang said. “The premium AI that delivers real results still costs money, and a new divide is opening up between Wall Street and Main Street.”

Qaiyum also told lawmakers that since his company has begun utilizing AI more heavily, he’s increased his staff by 20%, from 50 to 60 employees. “We look at (AI) as a set of tools to help us increase our capacity and then bring more people on,” Qaiyum said. “Right now, we’re building an AI agent to handle routine accounts payable work that takes one employee more than 20 hours per week, hours we’d rather have her helping with strategic problems to grow our business.”

Qaiyum said Merz Apothecary - which sells health, beauty and grooming products - also relies on AI tools to get analysis of cash flows, track inventory, keep tabs on investments, record expenses, manage payroll, and look out for possible financial risks.

“And we’re still hiring,” Qaiyum said. “We’re at the point now where we'd like to bring someone in who has more experience (with AI) because we see so much opportunity ahead.” Qaiyum repeatedly insisted that AI is a new technological advantage, while “humans are the durable advantage that you have.”

Crenshaw also warned that small businesses will suffer if Congress fails to act on regulating AI, and leaves the issue to the states, which would create a costly national “patchwork” of business rules that smaller firms would be hard-pressed to navigate.

He cited a study from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (a nonprofit think tank that gets much of its support from the tech sector and other big companies). It concluded that without a national set of AI data privacy rules, it will cost the nation roughly $1 trillion over the next decade, with $200 billion of that being borne by the small business community. He also singled out a relatively new California state law, the California Consumer Privacy Act, which underwent rulemaking involving AI after it was signed into law in 2020; Crenshaw said it’s now estimated that it will cost small businesses $16,000 annually to comply with the AI portion of the law.

The bottom line, experts told lawmakers, is that AI will not be able to replace truly human capabilities, but rather should empower workers with new tools to become more efficient, productive and skilled. The four urged Congress to approve more funding for AI literacy training for businesses and workers, and to set up a national regulatory framework for AI models to follow, instead of the current state-by-state regulatory patchwork that is developing in the absence of federal AI rules.

Although the committee took no action on any specific bills or proposals on Tuesday, several House members said they believe it’s important for Congress to approve some type of national regulatory framework for AI and tech companies, along with funding AI literacy programs through the Small Business Administration.

“Our goal is to make every small business and entrepreneur make sure they have the opportunity to succeed in the emerging age of AI,” Committee Chairman Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, said at the outset of Tuesday’s hearing.

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ForbesPoll: Small Business Only American Institution With Bipartisan SupportBy John SchroyerForbesWhy Small Businesses Aren’t Hiring: They Can’t Find Qualified WorkersBy John SchroyerForbesMillennials Are Buying Blue Collar Small Businesses To AI-Proof Their FutureBy John Schroyer %!s()

"It's not a junk rally," Matt Bartolini, the firm's global head of research strategists, told CNBC's "ETF Edge" this week.

Bartolini cited a promising trend: more Wall Street firms are upgrading small-cap earnings expectations than downgrading them. This means higher earnings per share estimates for this year, including for the upcoming third and fourth quarters. He added that this quarter will likely see over 20% EPS growth.

He also cited stronger relative momentum, and the "depth and breadth" associated with the small-cap stock market. "You have all 11 small-cap GICS sectors outperforming their respective large-cap GICS sectors. That hasn't happened in over 30 years," Bartolini said.

He added that not-so-heavily shorted small-cap stocks are outperforming heavily shorted ones, which is a signpost of a sustainable rally. "If this was a snapback junk rally where it was a short squeeze, it would be the inverse," he said.

State Street's SPSM and SLYG, exchange-traded funds which track the S&P 600 Small-Cap and S&P 600 Small-Cap Growth indexes, respectively, are both up more than 20% this year, according to CNBC data. In the same timeframe last year, SPSM fell almost 2% and SLYG increased just 0.86%. 

The Russell 2000 Index – the most popular small-cap stock benchmark and the index underlying IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF – is also up close to 20% this year, its best first half since 1991 when George H.W. Bush was in office.

"You have that fundamental momentum, the relative price momentum, [and] the idea that [the small cap trade] is more enduring," Bartolini said.

Performance of small-cap stocks versus large-cap stocks over the past year.

Phil McInnis, chief investment strategist at Avantis Investors, says the historic small-cap rally should be a signal to investors to look beyond the large-cap trade. "Some investors … don't even realize [that] if you're buying the S&P 500, yes, that's giving you pretty decent exposure to the stock market, but it's nowhere close to the full stock market," he said on "ETF Edge."

"I still see large-cap flows getting a lot more attention versus small caps," he added, citing combined mutual fund and ETF data. "I still think small caps are maybe being overlooked by a lot of investors, and I think there's a massive reason to have them in your portfolio."

Along with small-caps, McInnis — whose firm manages multiple small-cap funds among other stock and bond investments — is stressing non-U.S. developed markets, emerging markets, and mid-caps as other asset classes where investors should consider adding exposure. Emerging markets, in particular, have performed "tremendously well" over the last year, he said.

IEMG, the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets exchange-traded fund, is up more than 18% this year.

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Here's how Funnel Runners works. You find yourself in your average American suburb, with you and up to apparently seven of your friends facing off against a tornado. The devs have previously framed the game as one akin to survival horror, said tornado acting as the evil critter/beastie/figure hunting you down. Fun way of viewing such a thing! The whole goal is exploring the aforementioned city to find all of the prerequisite parts needed to repair your van so you can escape before the tornado gets too intense.

That means finding things like spare tires, oil for your engine, that sort of thing. You have a few tools at your disposal to help you get to the point of full repair too, with small things such as a flashlight for dimly lit buildings, or a radar to track where the tornado (or tornados, as they can multiply) is on the map, or a defibrillator to bring back one of your pals that's about to bite the proverbial bucket. There's a lot to manage, and you're at risk from things like lightning and fire too, not even considering the fact that seemingly entire hurricanes can form.

According to Supernova Studios, the game is technically done and fully playable, opting for an early access release in order to let those that play the game to help shape what's to come. There are plans for new areas, weather events, hazards, mission types, and more complex progression, with the current plan being that the game will be in early access for about a year. If any of this tickles your fancy, you can pick up the game on Steam now. %!s()

Very confidently for events like heat waves and heavy rainfall—but much less so for others, like thunderstorms and tornadoes—according to a major new report published Thursday by the United States' top science advisory body.

Entitled "Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and their Impacts," the 254-page paper updates a 2016 assessment by the same institutions, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

"Significant progress has been made over the last decade, with major advancements in methods and modeling that allow for more robust assessments of extreme events," said James Hurrell, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and chair of the committee that wrote the report.

Operating under a charter signed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, the prestigious academies are independent nonprofit institutions tasked with advising the government on scientific policy.

But these are no ordinary times under the administration of President Donald Trump, who has attacked the very idea that burning fossil fuels is warming the planet.

Getting specific

Scientists have no such doubts. They have known for decades that climate change is altering the frequency and intensity of several types of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, heat waves and extreme rainfall.

But the field of attribution science allows them to move beyond detecting broad trends to investigating individual events—what the authors call extreme event attribution (EEA)—which can provide vital information to policymakers.

EEA studies compare an event's characteristics, such as its probability and intensity in the current climate, to a "counterfactual" world without human-caused emissions.

The authors found that EEA capabilities have improved markedly over the past decade, thanks to advances in understanding the physical drivers of events, expanded observational data from satellites and radar, new statistical techniques and better models.

But the gains are uneven, and significant challenges remain for certain types of events. Global models, for example, lack the resolution to capture climate change's impact on severe thunderstorms, even as confidence for hurricanes is higher.

Confidence estimates are also lower for underdeveloped parts of the world, where a lack of consistent, long-term records limits attribution science's reach.

Another emerging field is extreme event impact attribution (EEIA), which studies how far human-caused climate change has shaped the impacts of an extreme event—human health effects or economic losses, for instance. The authors said this subfield has enormous potential but remains in its infancy.

They also called for a common framework for attribution studies, noting that differing methods "sometimes lead to confusion among the public and other stakeholders when studies of the same event produce different results."

Sowing doubt

Still, the results are likely to boost the multitude of lawsuits working their way through courts across the country.

Oregon's Multnomah County, for example, is suing fossil fuel giants for more than $51 billion over pollution that fueled a deadly 2021 heat dome in the Pacific Northwest, during which hundreds died.

Ahead of the report's publication, Republican lawmakers sought to cast doubt on the authors' work, sending a letter in April to the president of NASEM alleging bias and demanding details on the authors' professional ties.

Energy In Depth, an oil industry blog, singled out Delta Merner, a scientist with the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, for criticism in a Jan. 2, 2025, post, and she left the panel the same day.

At the federal level, the Trump administration has sued Democratic-led states pursuing climate damages claims against oil and gas majors and has sought to strike down state "Climate Superfund" laws requiring polluters to pay for the consequences.

Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have introduced the "Stop Climate Shakedowns Act," a bill that would block climate damage lawsuits from proceeding in court—a move critics call a de facto immunity shield for fossil fuel companies.

Who's behind this story?

Andrew Zinin

Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →

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