A new bill, a $11-per-worker benchmark, and what the divide actually costs you.

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Congress just passed something worth watching.

The House approved the SBA Artificial Intelligence Utilization Act of 2026, championed by Congressman Brad Finstad. The short version: it tells the Small Business Administration to actually build AI tools and guidance into what it offers small business owners. That could mean free training through your local SBDC, subsidized access to AI platforms, or at minimum a more useful conversation when you walk into an SBA office.

It hasn't been signed into law yet. But if it does, the SBA stops being just a loan office and starts being a resource you'd actually use. Worth a bookmark. Next time you're interacting with your SBDC, ask what's coming.

Now, here's the number that should annoy you.

The median company spends $11.38 per worker on AI tools. That's not a lot. A streaming subscription costs more. But the gap isn't really about the dollar amount. It's about who's getting access to what.

At large enterprises, workers are getting the frontier models. Think of those as the full research library, available on demand, with a good search engine. At a lot of small businesses, workers are getting nothing. Not the budget version. Nothing.

That uneven access compounds. An employee who can draft, research, schedule, and summarize in half the time is not twice as productive over a year, they're multiples ahead. If your competitors are building that habit into every role and you're not, the gap isn't theoretical. It shows up in your bids, your response times, your margins.

The $11.38 number gives you a concrete floor for budgeting. If you've got ten employees and you're spending less than $115 a month total on AI tools, you're below average. That's a fixable problem.

One more story, and it's an underrated one.

Sloss Tech in Birmingham hosted hands-on AI problem-solving sessions directly for small business owners, pairing them with AI experts to work through real business challenges in the room. One attendee said it surfaced AI applications she hadn't considered before, which is exactly what doesn't happen when you try to figure this out alone at midnight.

Self-guided learning works for some people. But most owners I talk to get unstuck faster when they're in a room with someone who can look at their actual problem. This format is spreading. Search for AI workshops at your local chamber, SBDC, or community college. If there isn't one, there probably will be soon, especially if that SBA bill passes.

More Headlines

The San Francisco Fed published early community development research on how small businesses are actually using AI since generative AI went commercial in late 2022, including which tasks owners are delegating and where the gaps still are. More rigorous than most takes you'll read.

Forbes put together a practical breakdown of 10 AI agents small businesses are deploying right now for customer service, scheduling, and sales follow-up, including which ones deliver relief fastest. Concrete enough to use as a checklist.

Entrepreneur.com makes the case that AI-powered personalization is replacing price as the main way service businesses compete, as consumers use AI search to find the best deal in seconds. If you're in a service business, read this one.

Forbes also has a useful overview of how Claude is replacing the five tools small businesses used to duct-tape together. Older piece, but a good reference if you're still running on a patchwork stack.

-Scott

SmartOwner is published (almost) daily by the team at DigitalTreehouse. Want AI consulting or automations for your business? Reply to this email.