These small-business owners are putting AI to good use

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🗞️ Driving the news: Small-business owners across the US are rapidly adopting generative AI to perform financial analysis, manage operations, and streamline decision-making — tasks they once outsourced or completed manually
• With no in-house strategy teams like large corporations, these entrepreneurs are experimenting directly with tools such as ChatGPT (see sustainability performance of OpenAI) to solve problems on the fly

🔭 The context: Chicago hospitality entrepreneur Mike Salvatore, who runs two cafés, two bars and a bike shop, says AI has effectively become his “CFO”
• What once required hours of spreadsheets — analysing cost of goods, modelling price changes, forecasting margins — can now be done in minutes
• Across sectors, small firms are using AI for marketing, supply planning, customer support and operations
• Owners say the technology helps them stay competitive against better-resourced companies and make faster, data-driven decisions

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: AI’s democratisation enables more efficient resource use, reduced waste, and leaner small-business operations — all of which contribute to lower environmental footprints
• As millions of small firms optimise purchasing, logistics and energy use through AI, the aggregate sustainability impact could be significant

⏭️ What’s next: Expect rapid expansion as small businesses adopt AI agents for real-time financial management and local-scale optimisation, reshaping how neighbourhood enterprises operate

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