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For small and medium businesses, artificial intelligence can be intimidating
At AI for SMB, we believe AI can be a superpower for this community to grow their businesses
Learn from world leaders through our podcasts
AI technology is changing everyday. To keep up-to date and to bring you clarity on how AI technology practically creates value for businesses, Neal Mahidhar (founder) interviews global AI leaders who explain how they are deploying AI
Phil Moyer, CEO Vimeo
“Creators, influencers, and entrepreneurs can scale their businesses rapidly”
Melisa Tokmak, CEO Netic
“Agentic AI is transforming utility services companies - Plumbing, Electricians, and Landscapers”
Rana Gujral, CEO, Behavioral Signals
“Emotional intelligence is used by AI to enhance customer care”
Sanford Spivey, Partner 25Madison Evolve
“AI provides competitive edge to SMBs in today's market"
Jason Masciarelli, VP Launchpad.io
“AI enables SMBs to build digital platforms at speed that they could do never before”
Dr. Miguel Paredes, Partner Kearney
“Agentic AI enables SMBs to monetize their data”
Pavan Arora, MD Gryphon Investors
“SMBs don't need massive investments to adopt AI”
Pavan Pant, VP Flagship Pioneering
"AI is a transformative force, enabling SMBs to overcome traditional resource limitations"
AI business conference
In May of 2025 we hosted AI for Business conference at Beaver Country Day School In Chestnut Hill, MA. This conference brought together students, faculty, and world renowned AI experts including Tom Davenport, Venkat Srinivasan and Pavan Pant.
The conference explored AI trends, investor’s perspective, and SMB use cases.
What is AI for SMB
I built AI for SMB as a non-profit organization with a mission to help small and medium businesses demystify:
  • How AI works
  • Educate employees and communities
  • Curate effective AI tools for SMBs
  • Assess AI readiness
  • Prioritize use cases that will create businesses impact
  • Support in implementing AI tools
  • Build Ai governance framework
Ultimately to responsibly grow SMB businesses with AI
Neal Mahidhar
What have we delivered since 2023
Our discovery on how AI creates value for SMBs
Since Dec of 2023 we have interacted with over 40 SMBs and evaluated over 100 technology platforms to discover the functional areas where AI driven automation is creating. We have catalogued real-world examples to demonstrate how businesses like yours are already benefiting from AI automation:
HVAC Company - This family owned HVAC company has been able to capture thousands in missed revenue opportunities by providing customers more seamless inquiry to quote by using agentic AI solutions. They executed this without any in-house AI talent by working with netic.ai
Retail Collective - A group of small retailers implemented AI chatbots and personalized marketing automation, increasing customer engagement by 63% boosting repeat purchase rates by 28% within the first three months. They implemented it with the AI platform from intermedia.com
Tech Startup - This early stage start up that offers financial advisor’s assistant platform to automate their client intake and engagement worked with aiforsmb.org to develop their AI governance framework and AI policies.
Our findings on AI readiness for SMBs
Most SMBs do not know where to begin their AI journey. They do not have in-house AI talent to identify use cases and assess what it will take them to be ready to adopt AI. SMBs, do not need hire high paid consulting firms to conduct this assessment. AI for SMB has developed a comprehensive assessment tool, which SMBs can use for free. We have implemented this diagnostics at 25+ SMBs. Below are some findings from our diagnostic so far
  • 65% SMBs are already using off-the-shelf AI tools like chatGPT or co-pilot
  • 82% SMBs do not know what use cases will create value
  • 91% SMBs do not have in-house AI talent
  • 53% SMBs believe they can leapfrog with AI
  • 72% SMBs need to assess AI risks and put AI frameworks in place
Research
Early in AI’s adoption curve, creating organizational policies and principles, developed and enforced by a cross-functional steering committee, may have been a reasonable approach to governance of AI. However, given the proliferation and rapid change of AI technology, traditional oversight models cannot keep pace and don’t address some of the key concerns about AI.
While companies continue to invest heavily in AI use cases, their primary concern is not value creation but avoiding risk. In a survey of 1,300 tech leaders by Box, over half cited regulatory compliance, reliability, and security as top AI implementation risks. To manage this new landscape, AI governance needs to scale at the speed of AI technology innovation.
Over the last year, Neal Mahidhar collaborated with Prof. Tom Davenport to research and suggest a practical approach to AI governance. Our research includes, emerging AI Governance Framework, technology governance platforms that turn policies into actions, ensuring ethical use of AI, and monitoring AI Agents like human agents.
(This research article has been submitted to Harvard Business Review)
We are continuously testing new AI platforms including AI governance platforms. We believe in the power of collective intelligence. If you are interested suggesting an AI platform or testing one for us, please let us know by clicking below.