Balancing Technology and Communication
Ignoring AI could be a business-ending choice. While you wait for "this AI thing" to shake itself out, your competitors—large and small—are already formulating plans to capitalize on the changes AI makes possible. We are at an inflection point for small business, one as consequential as the Industrial Revolution was for manufacturing. Yet our media is so saturated with sensationalist articles about AI's promises and pitfalls that many owners have developed a serious case of AI fatigue. The temptation is to tune it all out. Don't.
An important part of my job is to guide business owners who are not as comfortable with technology or who may feel lost in the sea change that is happening with technology right now. We are currently in the middle of an immensely consequential moment for small business. AI has been around for years, but suddenly the ubiquity and capability of AI-based tools (not to mention blog posts!) seems to have exploded! This has a paralyzing effect on small businesses.
Small businesses lack teams of individuals focused on "AI initiatives" developing 3-5 year roadmaps. Instead, they are overwhelmed by the hundreds upon hundreds of choices: large language models, AI-based search engines, AI websites and tools—all multiplying faster than anyone can track. And while you can always ask AI for advice in these matters, the success of your queries may be far less effective than you had hoped, considering that you may not know the questions to ask, or may still simply be overwhelmed by the abundance of choice.
As Sun Tzu put it, "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity." Business can feel like war at times—cutthroat and often inhuman, choosing profit over all else. That is not in my nature, nor is it in the nature of most small business owners. We are individuals, and thus focus more on relationships and community. Even if you are a small business owner with 50 employees, it is likely your employees are like family to you.
Does that mean that you have to accept the fate of being crushed by a larger (and likely more cut-throat) competitor? Not at all. You have something they don't—empathy. Small businesses must play to their strengths and avail ourselves of every possible advantage at our disposal to remain competitive and profitable—while still retaining our essential humanity.
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
AI is a vast and fast-moving topic. For small business owners already stretched thin, the sheer scope of it breeds uncertainty—and uncertainty breeds fear. Fear, in turn, creates resistance. It becomes easier to look away, to wait it out, to hope the problem solves itself. But resistance is not a strategy.
Generally speaking, two groups seem most fearful about AI:
It's this second concern that weighs on tech pundits, economists, and a vast number of white-collar workers facing an uncertain future amid daily doom-and-gloom headlines. And yes, AI will take jobs. But here's the thing: for most small businesses, that framing misses the point entirely. You don't have teams of specialists. You don't have the budget to hire a data analyst, a marketing strategist, and a copywriter. For small business, AI isn't a threat to jobs you already have—it's an opportunity to finally get the work done that was never getting done in the first place.
Yes, widespread job displacement is one possible future. But humans are notoriously bad at predicting what comes next. Our instinct is to anticipate the worst in order to protect ourselves—and in doing so, we crowd out the possibility of a brighter outcome. A future could emerge defined by a renaissance of scientific discovery: breakthroughs in medicine, clean and affordable energy, and perhaps even a more egalitarian world.
The key question is: How do we create that future? Our individual actions—through business decisions, political engagement, and daily interactions—will shape the outcome. We can become thought leaders who understand and use these tools, develop the vocabulary to assess risks, and promote responsible governance. Or we can be overwhelmed by change and manipulated by algorithms designed to maximize profit by exploiting our fears and tribalism, distracting us from the real dangers these powerful tools pose.
Embracing Change
The first step is to understand and embrace the idea commonly attributed to the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus; "everything flows, nothing stands still.” We know this in its contemporary interpretation as “the only constant in life is change.”
It is often our intrinsic resistance to change that holds us back—not from material gain, but from manifesting the best possible version of ourselves. We are best able to actualize our goals when we are agile and adaptable in the world as it is, not as we wish it was.
History is full of disruptive innovations that have created and destroyed businesses. Consider the tools I'm using right now: a laptop computer and virtually flawless AI-assisted voice recognition. Both would have seemed like science fiction a generation ago.
We have come a long way from clay tablets and a stylus. You would be hard pressed to find many longing for a printing press or even a typewriter these days. If you come across a typewriter now, it is just a novelty for those of a certain age. Yet it was not very long ago that this was the principal tool for written business communication. The widespread adoption of word processors in the 1980s was met with disdain by many—including academics. Today, few would willingly return to that tool, even if it were feasible given our reliance on email and messaging platforms.
The three largest typewriter manufacturers were IBM, Smith Corona, and Underwood. If you are under the age of 30, you may only be familiar with one of those companies—IBM. In 1978 they had about 94% of the typewriter market. Yet they were able to successfully pivot to computers and today IBM is roughly a $200B company. Both Smith Corona and Underwood failed to adapt to this technological change. Underwood disappeared by 1963; Smith Corona limps on making thermal labels.
An Optimistic View
I have always been a technological optimist. Perhaps this is a result of growing up in the world vision of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek Universe. Star Trek depicted a future universe where the citizens of planet Earth no longer had to work for a living, but only did jobs and took on tasks that interested them, pursuing careers, or simply arts or exploration. Perhaps this vision is not so far-fetched as we usher in the era of not only AI but soon to follow advanced robotics. There are other possible outcomes available. But again, it is so important that we actively participate in that future vision instead of allow a handful of multi-billion dollar companies to define the future we will experience.
The truth is, there will be pain before there is any sort of freedom, because the landscape is changing so quickly that we are just not equipped to deal with it. Jobs are being lost rapidly, and while AI tools are helpful to those with the knowledge to capitalize upon them, they are still at a relatively incoherent state where it takes some skill to coax out the proper results.
Right now, for a small business to properly make use of AI can be a real challenge. Certainly, many small businesses are touching upon the surface of AI tools where they exist as full replacements, but it takes time for these tools to become fully accessible. Search, for example, is no longer synonymous with Google—it's rapidly being supplemented by AI tools like Gemini. Large companies with deep pockets can employ specialists in every facet of their operations.
But here's the opportunity: small businesses can now have expertise in every facet of their organization—if they know how and when to ask the right questions, and which tools to implement. The playing field is more level than it has ever been.
Start small. Identify two or three business problems that consume disproportionate time—tasks you never quite get to, bottlenecks that slow everything down. Then find one AI tool that addresses each, and take a single, concrete step this week. You don't need a detailed plan for AI domination. You just need to start. That’s the small business way.
The question isn't if you'll adapt—it's when. And the sooner you start, the better positioned you'll be. The tools are here. The opportunity is real. The only thing standing between your business and a more capable future is the decision to begin.