Google Gives $10 Million to Help Small Businesses Use AI
Google has introduced a pair of initiatives to help small businesses integrate artificial intelligence (AI).
The tech giant is providing $10 million in funding to America’s Small Business Development Center (SDBC), a network of centers providing training and resources to entrepreneurs, Google announced Thursday (Sept. 12).
The news comes as small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly turning to AI to solve a variety of tasks.
“This funding will support the creation of America’s SBDC AI U, which will provide small business owners with AI training and tools and will establish AI Clinics at SBDCs housed at university and community college campuses,” Google wrote on its blog.
“With training from America’s SBDC AI Clinic Advisors, university and community college students will provide hands-on instruction and consultation to small businesses in their communities. America’s SBDC will also receive scholarships to the Google AI Essentials course to help train the AI Clinic Advisors.”
In addition, the company’s Grow with Google initiative is launching an AI workshop to help small businesses take advantage of Google’s AI-powered tools. SBDC will incorporate this training — featuring case studies, demos and hands-on activities like prompting exercises — as a part of its overall AI curriculum, Google said.
“AI is no longer just the domain of large corporations with deep pockets and extensive tech teams,” PYMNTS wrote recently. “However, the ways that Main Street SMBs can unlock growth through strategic applications of AI looks a little different from the approaches being taken by their larger enterprise counterparts.”
And smaller businesses aren’t just playing catch-up, that report noted. They’re leveraging the technology in ways suited to their scale and operations, from better access to working capital, to marketing and workflow automation.
“In contrast to large enterprises, which might use AI to optimize global supply chains, SMBs are applying AI at a more localized level,” PYMNTS wrote.
“A small auto repair shop, for instance, might use AI to predict which parts will be needed most frequently based on historical data, reducing the need for large inventories and ensuring that commonly needed parts are always in stock.”
By the same token, AI could help a local retail store optimize schedules based on customer foot traffic patterns, making sure it has the right number of employees at the right times.
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