Small Businesses Tell Congress AI Adds Jobs, Not Pink Slips

By Daniel Okafor

Forty-seven percent of small businesses using artificial intelligence say the technology is creating jobs today. Only 6 percent report headcount reductions. That gap is the core message small business owners carried to Capitol Hill this month during the U.S. Chamber's Small Business Council Fall Fly-In.

The owners met lawmakers and staff from House and Senate offices. They shared one policy ask: pass a national framework for AI rather than let 50 states write 50 different rulebooks. They also urged Congress to keep AI tools affordable and accessible for Main Street firms.

The timing is not accidental. The Chamber's Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC) released its fifth Empowering Small Business report alongside the fly-in. Its findings give the owners' lobbying a hard statistical base.

What does the data show?

The C_TEC report, titled Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business, documents how deeply technology now runs through small-firm operations.

• Nearly 100 percent of small businesses use at least one technology platform at work.
• 41 percent now use more than six platforms, up nine points from 2025 and nearly triple the 2022 level.
• AI users are at least seven points more likely than non-users to report sales, profit, and workforce growth.
• 78 percent of AI users say limiting access would slow their growth; 75 percent say it would hurt their bottom line.

The pattern is simple. Firms that adopted AI grew faster than firms that did not. The report frames AI as a job engine, not a job cutter, for the small business sector.

How do owners actually use the tools?

The fly-in produced concrete use cases, not abstractions. Larry Kidd, CEO of staffing firm :hire, told lawmakers AI gives smaller firms capabilities once reserved for large corporations.

"AI's greatest value is its ability to help smaller businesses move faster, make more informed decisions, and compete more effectively," Kidd said. "Rather than replacing human expertise, AI helps quickly organize information, compare options, identify risks, and improve productivity, allowing small and mid-sized businesses to access capabilities that were once reserved for larger organizations."

Traci Tapani, Co-President of Wyoming Machine, gave a specific before-and-after example. She used AI to turn a scanned seven-year-old paper shipping document into a fully editable Excel file in about a minute. Rebuilding it by hand would have taken roughly an hour.

"What would have taken roughly an hour to recreate manually became a strong first draft in seconds, highlighting one of AI's most practical benefits: Eliminating tedious, time-consuming tasks so businesses can focus their time and expertise where it matters most," Tapani said.

Where does AI sit inside a manufacturer?

Michael Canty, President and CEO of Alloy Precision Technologies in Ohio, described an operation-wide deployment. Every department runs AI in some form.

"Alloy uses AI in every department for a wide, and growing, set of uses," Canty said. "Our supply chain team uses AI to find and qualify vendors. Sales and marketing uses AI to research competitors and better understand and service customers. Our Finance/IT teams use it for reports, grant writing, programming, operations, and much more. Our H.R. department uses AI in recruitment."

Canty said Alloy also applies AI on the plant floor for automated machine learning, and as a governance and predictive overlay for its new production analytics company, Production Pulse LLC.

What are other owners building?

Four more owners brought their own cases to the fly-in:

• Brendan McCluskey, President and Founder of Trident Builders, is working with Johns Hopkins University on an AI tool to boost onsite productivity and close the skills gap with new workers.
• Phillip Preston, President of PolyScience, said AI scrubs through his top engineers' emails to support highly technical queries, freeing those engineers to develop new solutions.
• Chris Barber, Chief Nerd at Cheaper than a Geek, has used AI for a decade and credited it with helping customers combat hackers.
• Julianne Weiner, COO of Sonic Promos, said AI generates proposals to a 90 percent complete draft, saving employees many hours per document.

Why does the 50-state question matter?

The owners' central argument is regulatory, not technical. A single national AI framework would let a 20-person machine shop in Minnesota and a builder in Maryland operate under one set of rules. A state-by-state patchwork would multiply compliance costs precisely for the firms least able to absorb them.

The C_TEC numbers back that concern. If 78 percent of AI-using small businesses say restricting access would slow growth, then regulatory friction carries a measurable economic cost across a sector that employs much of the U.S. workforce. Congress now faces a choice between the unified framework the Chamber's members requested and the fragmented alternative they warned against, and the report's growth figures will anchor that debate.