On July 14, 2026, the U.S. House Committee on Small Business held a hearing called "AI on Main Street: How AI is Shaping the Future of Small Business." If you run a small business and you have been quietly wondering whether you are late to AI, the testimony from that room is worth your attention. Congress looked at the numbers and the numbers say adoption is already the norm, not the exception.
Here is the headline for an owner who worries AI will hollow out their team: the small businesses using AI are, by a wide margin, growing their headcount, not shrinking it.
Adoption is already the norm
Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) opened the hearing with a number that answers the whole "am I behind" question. He said nearly three-quarters of small businesses are now using AI in some form, which he described as more than triple the adoption rate from three years earlier.
That trend line matches what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found in its own research. In the Chamber's Empowering Small Business report, dated August 18, 2025, 58 percent of small businesses said they use generative AI. That was up from 40 percent in 2024 and more than double its 2023 rate. The Chamber also reported that 96 percent of small business owners plan to adopt emerging technologies, including AI, and that 77 percent of the ones already using AI said limits on the technology would hurt their growth, operations, and bottom line.
Williams described the trend plainly: "Small businesses are closing the technology gap with big corporations faster than in any prior wave of innovation."
For a while, "wait and see" felt like the cautious position. When three in four of your peers are already using the tools, sitting out stops being cautious.
The number that answers the fear in the room
Most owners who feel behind on AI carry the same worry: if I bring this in, does it replace my people?
The hearing put a hard number against that fear. Williams said 82 percent of small businesses using AI expanded their workforce over the past year. That figure lines up with the Chamber's own reporting, which found the same 82 percent of AI-using small businesses increased their workforce.
The witnesses described it the same way. According to Forbes' coverage of the hearing, Jordan Crenshaw of the U.S. Chamber's Technology Engagement Center told the committee, "These businesses are not using AI to replace people. They're using it to help employees focus on high value work." Forbes also quoted Anthony Qaiyum, who owns Merz Apothecary in Chicago: "We look at (AI) as a set of tools to help us increase our capacity and then bring more people on."
That is the pattern behind the number. When a two-person team can suddenly handle the paperwork of a five-person team, the owner does not fire anyone. They take on more work, and eventually they hire.
Where the real barrier sits now
Williams named the obstacles his committee sees to wider adoption: owner uncertainty about how to actually implement AI, cost concerns, worries about data security, and regulatory uncertainty from earlier government approaches. Tellingly, he did not name access to the tools. The tools are cheap, and often free, and they are everywhere.
Some of the witnesses pushed the point further, toward capability rather than access. Forbes reported that Chike Aguh of the Kapor Center told the committee, "So many small businesses don't have a website. AI can make those things happen." The tools can do the work. The question is whether the person at the keyboard knows how to direct them.
France Hoang, the founder and CEO of BoodleBox, made that case most directly. As reported by ITBrief, he warned against treating AI as a faster version of the old process: "We tend to think of AI like a faster car. Let's just do whatever we're doing today and just do it faster and better with AI tools. I would argue the key to AI adoption is to rethink the roads, to ask ourselves where we want to go." His summary line, per ITBrief: "First, fund the roads, not just the cars."
Worth being precise here. "Training, not access, is the barrier" is Hoang's testimony, and Aguh's, not a formal finding of the committee. The Chairman's own list of barriers is the one above. But the witness point is a useful read for any owner deciding where to spend their next dollar. Buying another tool is easy. Building the skill to use it well is the part that actually moves results.
Hoang broke that skill into three parts, as ITBrief reported: "AI literacy has three components. First, domain expertise. Second, AI enablement. And third, I would argue that in this era of AI, the things that make us uniquely human are more important than ever: critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity."
That is a good description of what capability actually looks like. It is why we built The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency: a way to see where a person actually stands, from first curiosity up through directing AI across a whole workflow. The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency measures the thing the witnesses were pointing at, which is not whether you have the tool but whether you can put it to work.
What owners are actually using AI for
If you want the practical version of all this, Williams listed the everyday jobs where AI is helping small businesses right now:
- Administrative tasks and automating routine paperwork
- Faster response to customers
- Inventory management
- Cybersecurity
None of that requires an IT department. It is the busywork that eats an owner's week, handed to a tool that runs it in the background so the owner can spend the time on customers and growth.
Where to start
You do not need a big budget or a technical background to act on any of this. Pick one task from Williams' list, the one that eats the most of your week, and hand a first draft of it to a tool you already have. Then pay attention to the second part the witnesses kept coming back to: the skill to direct the tool well is what separates a disappointing result from a real one. That skill is learnable, and it is the edge while it is still early.
If you want to see where you and your team actually stand today, The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency assessment is a short, plain-language place to start.
Related reading: Level 5: The Captain (Design Thinker).
Sources
- The Small Business Committee: AI on Main Street (Chairman Roger Williams opening statement)
- U.S. Chamber's latest Empowering Small Business report shows majority of businesses in all 50 states are embracing AI
- Forbes: 10 Ways Small Businesses Can Use AI To Grow And Even Hire More Workers
- ITBrief: Small firms need AI training, not just access, says Hoang
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AI really that widespread among small businesses already?
By the numbers the committee heard, yes. Williams cited nearly three-quarters of small businesses using AI in some form, and the U.S. Chamber's report put generative-AI use at 58 percent as of its August 2025 report, up from its 2023 rate.
Will AI cost me employees?
The data the committee saw points the other way. Williams said 82 percent of small businesses using AI expanded their workforce over the past year, a figure that matches the Chamber's own reporting. Witnesses described AI as a way to increase capacity and then hire, not a substitute for staff.
Was this hearing about a specific new law?
The primary statement from the Chairman is about adoption trends and barriers, not a single bill. Treat this as a read on where small-business AI stands, not as legislation you need to act on.
Find your AI Proficiency level
The free 7 Levels assessment places you across seven stages of AI capability. Under ten minutes. Research-backed scoring.