I I recently met the owner of a company that sells windows and doors. He said he invested about $10,000 in an AI application used by showroom salespeople. The application listens to conversations between sales reps and prospects and automatically creates quotes that sales reps can review and send.
“This allows salespeople to talk to more customers and spend less time on paperwork,” he said. “And there are fewer mistakes.”
Another businesswoman I know connected Claude to a folder containing specifications, manuals, instruction manuals, technical sheets, and other documents for equipment sold by her company. She says her customer support team can now ask Claude about any issue and get an answer right away. Her next step is to roll out the platform to customers.
There are many other projects like this in progress. Last year, most small businesses used AI to get answers to questions, verify contracts, write policies, and rewrite emails. Now they are starting to move into real-world applications and are showing real return on investment.
The story of AI on Main Street so far doesn’t seem to be mass layoffs. Owners are exhausted and are leveraging technology to help their scarce employees do more work, make fewer mistakes, and serve more customers.
Since mid-2021, the Department of Labor reports an overall 9% increase in employment, not a decline. If you don’t believe what the government says, read the numbers from HR payroll processing companies like ADP, Gusto, and Paychex. All of these companies reported continued employment growth among their customers, especially smaller customers, over the same period. Gast said small businesses are expected to hire about 974,000 new graduates between the ages of 20 and 24 in the 2026 season, up from 962,000 in 2025. The number of job openings this month was approximately 7.6 million, an increase from pre-COVID-19 levels, and most of them are in small and medium-sized enterprises. And a recent survey by a number of news outlets found that most small businesses, which employ half of the country’s workers, are not only optimistic about their growth, but also plan to hire more people in the coming months.
AI is not replacing humans. And despite media reports and warnings from experts, academics, and experts, that won’t be the case, at least not for small businesses. why?
First of all, we don’t have enough people to do the work that needs to be done. The U.S. workforce is expected to shrink significantly over the next decade due to an aging population and slowing birth rates. There is a shortage of immigrant workers who perform many of our services. Even if small businesses could afford robotics, it would take years to install a dishwasher, repair an HVAC system, lay pipes, or install drywall. The construction industry is short of workers. Employers are now looking at AI to help employees slowly progress toward retirement.
People will adapt too. It’s insulting that these experts say millions of people will lose their jobs, as if humanity were just going to retire to their dark living rooms, receive some form of universal income check, and watch Netflix all day long. Humans are not like that.
When the tax code was first published in 1913, it was only a few dozen pages long. Now that number has increased to tens of thousands. Twenty years ago, job titles like “social media manager,” “mobile app developer,” “executive coach,” “SEO specialist,” or even “cannabis compliance manager” didn’t exist. With automation and technology all around us, how many times have you heard someone say they’re “blamed” or “haven’t taken a vacation in years”? People want purpose and they want to feel wanted. They want to be busy. I believe humanity will find plenty of other productive things to do with their time. The recent rise in entrepreneurship may indicate this.
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Also, trusting AI takes time. My clients don’t. When we regularly see breaches and models trained on private information, they don’t believe the promises made by big tech companies that their data will be protected and private. They wonder if using an AI platform will expose prices, costs, and other pertinent information to others. They’ve been hit hard by bugs, errors, shutdowns, and disruptions caused by unreliable technology before, and today’s big tech companies aren’t foolish to cover their tracks by calling these just “illusions.” please. There’s a long way to go, especially before business owners can make bots responsible for processing invoices, collecting accounts receivable, dealing with irate customers, and shipping products without human oversight.
Finally, because all large companies are bloated, large companies can lay off thousands of employees without flinching. These jobs are typically in PR, marketing, IT, customer service and are constantly exposed. Large companies often have entire departments that can quickly reduce headcount through automation. Small businesses usually don’t. Companies with 20 people rarely have that much leeway. Everyone is valuable and needs to pull their weight. Like the window and door guys, they want AI to help their staff get more done in a day so they can stop just surviving and start thriving.
Yes, technology has replaced workers for many years, and the AI boom will do the same. American companies may use AI to cut jobs. Main Street will likely use it to save time, save margins, and rescue employees it already struggles to find. That’s the story of AI that we should pay more attention to.
