OpenAI boosts 1,000 small businesses with AI | Keryc
OpenAI launches a hands-on initiative to bring artificial intelligence to Main Street: the Small Business AI Jam. What does that mean for you if you own a restaurant, a barbershop, or a small store that's not a tech company? Useful tools, training, and concrete support so AI stops being a promise and becomes a daily help.
What is the Small Business AI Jam
It's a one-day, in-person workshop organized by OpenAI Academy together with DoorDash, SCORE, and a network of local organizations. The idea is simple: bring more than 1,000 owners and small business teams across five cities to build, with OpenAI mentors, AI solutions tailored to real needs.
Participants come from a variety of sectors:
Professional services like accounting and law offices: about 1 in 5.
Restaurants, catering, and food trucks: also 1 in 5.
Retail shops like clothing and convenience stores: 1 in 10.
Small creative services like marketing and design: 1 in 10.
Local trades, cleaning, hairdressers, and barbers: 1 in 20.
What participants will build
The Jam isn't about theory. Attendees work side by side with mentors to create practical tools, for example:
Writing more attractive marketing materials and menus.
Improving customer communication through automated replies and messaging.
Speeding up routine tasks like inventory management or shift planning.
Every participant leaves with at least one tool ready to use. Plus, before the event there's a resource hub on OpenAI Academy to brush up on basics, and afterwards you get access to an online community to keep learning.
Small businesses are the building blocks of a healthy community. Giving them AI tools lets them compete better and realize real productivity gains.
Running a small business mixes craft, creativity, and chaos. AI doesn't remove that, but it can make it easier so owners can focus on what makes them special.
Where, when, and with whom
The Jam takes place in five hubs: San Francisco, New York, Houston, Detroit, and Miami. Local organizers help adapt the workshop to each community's needs. If you can't attend in person, there's a virtual Jam on December 4.
Regional partners include chambers of commerce and entrepreneurship centers like Detroit Means Business, Houston Area Urban League, The Idea Center in Miami, Five Chamber Alliance in New York, and REN Center in San Francisco, among others.
Why this matters for Main Street
A recent survey commissioned by OpenAI showed half of small business owners consider it important that their employees handle AI, and 60% expect to gain efficiency by hiring talent with those skills. Bringing practical training and ready-to-use tools helps make those expectations real.
OpenAI is also supporting this initiative with other measures: a certification track called AI for Main Street, a jobs platform to connect talent with businesses, and backing for two bipartisan bills in Congress that seek guidance and training resources for small businesses.
A real step toward digital equity
This isn't just a nice workshop. It's a bet that the productivity AI brings reaches the streets, not just big companies. Can you imagine the corner bakery or the local mechanic using AI to improve their day-to-day? That's exactly the picture they're trying to build: simple tools, practical training, and a community to sustain the change.
