New artificial intelligence tools are making it easier to start a business, fueling entrepreneurship and potentially job growth.
AI can write a business plan, conduct in-depth industry research, generate marketing content, design logos, prototype new products, and otherwise help launch or scale up a new enterprise. Chris Franco, an entrepreneur who has used AI extensively in growing his New York-based marketing and customer acquisition firm, Woodridge Growth, said, “You can do anything you can imagine. There’s nothing holding you back.”
Recent years have seen a surge in new business formation across the U.S., according to Census Bureau data. Solo founders are driving much of that growth, according to an analysis of Census data from Stripe Economics.
AI is slashing the cost of starting and running a business, said Torsten Slok, chief economist at asset management firm Apollo Global Management. “That’s because you can more easily write a business plan with a large language model, use agents to do work,” he added.
One way AI is lowering barriers to creating a new business: reducing startup costs. Angela Lee, a professor of entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School and herself a serial entrepreneur, told CBS News, “Founders are able to hire leaner teams and do more with less funding because of AI.”
Ernie Tedeschi, chief economist at Stripe Economics, described how entrepreneurs are leveraging AI to launch new enterprises. It can help you come up with a business plan or give advice on supply chains, he said.
Albert Feldman, owner of Boston-based candle company Sky Candle Co., started his business before the era of artificial intelligence but has since turned to AI for marketing campaigns, financial planning, and vital analytics. That has helped Sky Candle operate efficiently and compete with much larger enterprises, he told CBS News.
Although the advent of AI has stoked concerns that the technology could displace millions of workers, Apollo’s Slok expects it to fuel innovation and job creation in time. Lee is less optimistic, saying founders are hiring less, which will ultimately take away jobs.