House hearing (119th Congress), AI ON MAIN STREET: HOW AI IS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF SMALL BUSINESS (PDF)
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AI ON MAIN STREET: HOW AI IS SHAPING
THE FUTURE OF SMALL BUSINESS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
HEARING HELD
JULY 14, 2026
Small Business Committee Document Number 119–041
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
64–242 WASHINGTON : 2026
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas, Chairman
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota
TONY WIED, Wisconsin
ROB BRESNAHAN, Pennsylvania
BRIAN JACK, Georgia
KIMBERLYN KING-HINDS, Northern Marina Islands
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
JIMMY PATRONIS, Florida
CLAY FULLER, Georgia
NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member
MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
HILLARY SCHOLTEN, Michigan
LAMONICA MCIVER, New Jersey
GIL CISNEROS, California
KELLY MORRISON, Minnesota
GEORGE LATIMER, New York
DEREK TRAN, California
LATEEFAH SIMON, California
JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI, Maryland
MAGGIE GOODLANDER, New Hampshire
ANALILIA MEJIA, New Jersey
SEAN DILLON, Majority Staff Director
MELISSA JUNG, Minority Staff Director
(II)
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CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Roger Williams ................................................................................................ 1
Hon. Gil Cisneros ..................................................................................................... 2
WITNESSES
Mr. Jordan Crenshaw, Senior Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 5
Mr. Anthony Qaiyum, President, Merz Apothecary, Chicago, IL ........................ 6
Mr. Francis Hoang, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, BoodleBox, Colorado
Springs, CO .......................................................................................................... 8
Mr. Chike Aguh, Head of Innovation & Strategy, Kapor Center, Oakland,
CA .......................................................................................................................... 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Mr. Jordan Crenshaw, Senior Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Com-
merce, Washington, DC ................................................................................ 40
Mr. Anthony Qaiyum, President, Merz Apothecary, Chicago, IL ................. 54
Mr. Francis Hoang, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, BoodleBox, Colo-
rado Springs, CO ........................................................................................... 57
Mr. Chike Aguh, Head of Innovation & Strategy, Kapor Center, Oakland,
CA ................................................................................................................... 64
Questions and Answers for the Record:
Questions from Hon. Velázquez to Mr. Chike Aguh and Answers from
Mr. Chike Aguh ............................................................................................. 72
Additional Material for the Record:
SHRM Letter .................................................................................................... 75
Association for Enterprises Opportunity (AEO) ............................................. 77
SBC Dem Report .............................................................................................. 83
ACT Letter ........................................................................................................ 102
(III)
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AI ON MAIN STREET: HOW AI IS SHAPING
THE FUTURE OF SMALL BUSINESS
TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2026
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in Room
2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roger Williams [chair-
man of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Williams, Meuser, Van Duyne, Alford,
Finstad, Bresnahan, Jack, King-Hinds, Patronis, Fuller, Cisneros,
Velázquez, Scholten, McIver, Tran, and Goodlander.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Before we get started, I want to recognize
Representative Van Duyne from the great state of Texas to lead us
in the Pledge and the prayer. Would you stand?
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Heavenly Father, we come before you with
gratitude for the privilege and responsibility of serving the Amer-
ican people. Grant the Members of this committee wisdom to dis-
cern the truth, courage to do what is right, and humility to listen
with respect to one another. Help us to seek solutions that
strengthen our nation, protect the freedoms we cherish, and honor
the first—the trust placed in us by those we represent. We ask
your blessings on our country, our servicemembers, first respond-
ers, and all who labor for the peace, safety, and prosperity of the
United States. In your holy name we pray. Amen.
If you please join me in the Pledge.
ALL. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Good morning, everyone. I now call the
Committee on Small Business to order. Without objection, the
Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the Committee at any
time.
I now recognize myself for my opening statement.
Welcome to today’s hearing, ‘‘AI on Main Street: How AI is Shap-
ing the Future of Small Business.’’ I want to thank our witnesses
for coming with us today and being part of this.
Artificial intelligence has quickly transitioned from a novelty to
an indispensable business tool for main street businesses across
the country. AI is streamlining administrative tasks that once re-
quired significant time and resources and it is allowing small busi-
nesses to focus on growth instead of paperwork. Small businesses
are using AI to respond quickly to customers, manage inventory,
strengthen cybersecurity, and automate routine paperwork. And as
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a small business owner myself, I have seen the difference these
tools can make and I know firsthand how much of that burden falls
on the owner.
Artificial intelligence is no longer something reserved for big tech
companies and Fortune 500 boardrooms. Today, nearly three-quar-
ters of small businesses are using AI in some form, and this is
more than triple the share from just 3 years ago. So small busi-
nesses are closing in on technology gap with the big corporations
faster than any prior wave of innovation.
Importantly, early data is showing that AI rises, not coming at
the expense of workers. In fact, 82 percent of small businesses
using AI grew their workforce over the past year. Of course, real
barriers to broader AI adoption remain. Many owners tell us that
they simply don’t know how or where to start and that they worry
about costs, so that they are unsure how to keep their data secure.
But one of the biggest barriers in Washington is created, it is
called uncertainty. And the Biden administration took a heavy-
handed approach to AI. In October 30, 2023, they released the ex-
ecutive order imposing sweeping regulatory requirements and com-
pliance burdens that threatened to smother AI innovation before
small businesses ever got the chance to benefit from it. We only
need to look across the Atlantic to see where that road leads. Eu-
rope chose to regulate first and innovate later, and today their
small businesses are falling behind and the United States cannot
make the same mistake.
Thankfully, the Trump administration reversed course. They re-
scinded the Biden approach and replaced it with a pro innovation
strategy through Executive Order 14179 in America’s AI Action
Plan, clearing away for red—doing away with red tape so that AI
tools can be adopted with confidence. The SBA is doing its part by
also expanding access to AI through its new main street AI Accel-
erator program. And, of course, the Committee has led the way
with bipartisan legislation such as the AI-WISE Act, the AI for
Main Street Act, and the SBA Artificial Intelligence Utilization Act
of 2026. So together, these bipartisan bills ensure that entre-
preneurs have access to practical AI and the barriers to AI adop-
tion are reduced.
Our goal is to make every small business and entrepreneur make
sure they have the opportunity to succeed in the emerging age of
AI. So when small businesses have the tools, they have the train-
ing and freedom to innovate, they will out compete, they will out
build, and out hire anyone in the world, and our economy will be
stronger because of it.
I want to thank our witnesses again for joining us today. I look
forward to the conversation ahead.
And I now yield to Ranking Member Congressman Cisneros from
the great state of California.
Mr. CISNEROS. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for convening this important hearing.
Artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way businesses work
and humans operate. AI could allow main street businesses to scale
their capabilities and perform routine tasks faster and cheaper.
However, AI’s many risks have incurred costs for small firms. AI
can produce false outputs, a phenomenon known as hallucinations.
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Further, bias and discrimination AI decision-making undermines
its effectiveness, unduly hurts underserved communities, and ex-
poses users to legal and reputational harm. And AI companies
often take and use the data and information users input into their
models for further training and sale to other parties, posing privacy
risk.
It is challenging to know exactly how to assess and address these
problems, in part because AI developers through automated ma-
chine learning and most AI developers do not disclose their model’s
training information. I support the consideration and use of AI by
our small businesses, but we need to protect our businesses from
flexible flaws.
Small businesses need to be ready to effectively evaluate and
adopt these tools. Uneven access to AI and knowledge about how
to use it and avoid its risks threaten to cut whole segments of our
population off from the benefits of AI. Underserved people have es-
pecially fallen behind in their understanding of AI tools, increasing
the digital divide and hurting their businesses. It is this Commit-
tee’s responsibility to address these issues.
The SBA must provide AI literacy resources to educate entre-
preneurs on the risk and potential benefits of AI. This will reduce
the digital divide and equip entrepreneurs with the tools and infor-
mation to make well-informed, thoughtful decisions about whether
AI is right for them, what AI can and cannot do, and which specific
AI tools are suitable for a specific task.
Furthermore, the inherent risk of AI must be addressed through
smart and sensible AI regulation. Smart, well-crafted federal regu-
lation will minimize the risk of AI, maximize its benefits, and pre-
vent criminal and unethical use. These regulations are needed to
protect all Americans, especially small business owners.
Small businesses are crucial to the technological progress of our
country. Entrepreneurs use their unique perspectives, passion, and
resourcefulness to support and grow our country’s economy. That
is why we must support our small businesses by educating them
on this revolutionary technology, how to use it effectively, and how
to avoid its risk. It is important that the federal government sup-
ports small businesses developing new AI technologies with safety
and security in mind. It is vitally important that we do not leave
small businesses behind as we race to enhance our country’s com-
petitiveness. I look forward to discussing how we can better assist
our small businesses in this new era.
With that, I thank the witnesses for being here today and I yield
back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
We will now move to witness introductions. The first witness is
Mr. Jordan Crenshaw. Mr. Crenshaw is the senior vice president
at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center.
Before joining the Chamber, he was an attorney focused on envi-
ronmental issues and consumer privacy laws. Mr. Crenshaw
worked at McGuireWoods and also held roles in the Virginia Sen-
ate leadership, the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, the
U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Right to Work Defense
Foundation. He earned both his undergraduate and law degree
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from the College of William and Mary. I want to thank you for
being here and look forward to our discussion.
Our next witness is Anthony Qaiyum. He is the president of
Merz Apothecary, a locally owned small business serving customers
across the Chicago area and through his online store,
smallflower.com, across the country. The Qaiyum family has owned
and operated the business for decades. And under Mr. Qaiyum’s
leadership, it has grown from a neighborhood apothecary into a na-
tionally recognized destination for natural health, personal care,
and specialty products. Mr. Qaiyum earned his bachelor’s degree
from Williams College, one of the great schools, I might add. And
I look forward to your testimony, and thank you for you being here
today.
Our next witness is Mr. France Hoang. Mr. Hoang is the founder
and CEO of BoodleBox, a collaborative AI platform that gives small
business educators and workforce programs secure, affordable ac-
cess to multiple premium AI models in a single workspace. Prior
to starting BoodleBox, Mr. Hoang served as an executive officer of
the U.S. Army Special Forces Company during combat deployment
in Afghanistan. Thank you for that. And he also served as associate
counsel of the President under President George W. Bush. And he
has been on the founding teams of companies across the fields of
law, aerospace, defense, government services, and AI. He earned a
bachelor’s of science degree from the United States Military Acad-
emy at West Point. Beat Navy, right? And a law degree from
Georgetown University. I want to thank you for being here today
and look forward to our discussion.
I now recognize Congressman Cisneros from California to briefly
introduce our last witness appearing before us today.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my honor to in-
troduce Mr. Chike Aguh, the head of innovation and strategy at the
Kapor Center, a tech policy focused on making the tech industry
more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. He is also the Vice Chair of
the Maryland Higher Education Commission. Previously, Mr. Aguh
was the chief innovation officer at the last administration’s Labor
Department. While there, he led efforts to use big data and emerg-
ing tech to empower and protect American workers. Mr. Aguh also
has extensive experience in private industry, broadband access,
nonprofits, and the education system. He holds a bachelor’s degree
from Tufts, master’s degree in education and public administration
from Harvard, and an MBA degree from University of Penn Whar-
ton. A lot of education there. Thank you for being with us, Mr.
Aguh.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. And thank
you again, all of you, for being here today.
And before recognizing the witnesses, I would like to remind
them that their oral testimony is restricted to 5 minutes in length.
That is a big number around here. Five minutes, okay? And if you
see the light turn red in front of you, it means your 5 minutes has
concluded and you should wrap up your testimony. If you continue
to go, you will hear this. Okay? And it will get louder and louder.
So I now recognize Mr.—and I will say one other thing, too. You
are going to see Members going in and out. It is not because any-
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thing you said or did. We have other hearings going on, so there
will be people coming in and out all the time.
I now recognize Mr. Crenshaw for his 5-minute opening remarks.
STATEMENTS OF JORDAN CRENSHAW, SENIOR VICE PRESI-
DENT, TECHNOLOGY ENGAGEMENT CENTER, U.S. CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE; ANTHONY QAIYUM, PRESIDENT, MERZ
APOTHECARY; FRANCIS HOANG, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
& FOUNDER, BOODLEBOX; AND CHIKE AGUH, HEAD OF IN-
NOVATION & STRATEGY, KAPOR CENTER
STATEMENT OF JORDAN CRENSHAW, SENIOR VICE PRESI-
DENT, TECHNOLOGY ENGAGEMENT CENTER, U.S. CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE
Mr. CRENSHAW. Chairman Williams, Representative Cisneros,
and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on how artificial intelligence is shaping
the future of small business. My name is Jordan Crenshaw and I
serve as senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
where I lead the Chamber’s technology policy work, including arti-
ficial intelligence, data privacy, and emerging technologies.
For small businesses AI is not a distant idea. It is already help-
ing main street businesses save time, serve customers, manage
costs, and compete with larger firms. Tools that once required large
budgets and dedicated technology teams are now available to entre-
preneurs, family-owned businesses, and small employers across the
country. A retailer can use AI to understand demand and person-
alize marketing. A restaurant can improve scheduling and inven-
tory. A professional services firm can automate routine drafting
and research. A manufacturer can reduce waste and improve oper-
ations. In each case, AI is a force multiplier that helps small busi-
nesses do more with limited time, staff, and resources.
The AI adoption trend is clear. According to the U.S. Chamber’s
Empowering Small Business Report in 2025, 58 percent of U.S.
small businesses reported using generative artificial intelligence.
That is up from 40 percent in 2024 and 23 percent in 2023. That
growth reflects a simple reality: small businesses adopt technology
when it delivers practical value.
One example is Henry’s House of Coffee in San Francisco, a fam-
ily-owned roaster that has served its community for generations.
Its owner, Hrag Kalebjian, uses AI to improve online product de-
scriptions, better understand customers, and solve production chal-
lenges. He even used AI to help design a custom system to address
static in his coffee-bagging process, which actually helped him save
time on getting coffee outside of his e-commerce platform and to
customers. That is what AI adoption looks like on main street.
Practical, entrepreneurial, and focused on solving real problems.
AI is also creating workforce opportunities. The Chamber’s data
shows that 82 percent of small businesses using AI increased their
workforce over the last year. These businesses are not using AI to
replace people. They are using IT to help employees focus on high-
value work that requires judgment, creativity, and relationships.
Small businesses are also investing in their workers. They need
accessible training, strong partnerships and policies that make
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adoption easier, not harder. It is one reason that the U.S. Chamber
and its foundation launched the Small Business Basics Program re-
cently to train 40,000 small businesses across the country on AI.
We also support the AI for Main Street Act and the AI-WISE Act,
both of which would help put practical AI guidance and education
within reach of more small businesses.
At the same time, barriers remain. Small businesses face cost,
technical data readiness, trust, and legal uncertainty challenges.
The greatest policy threat in front of small businesses is a patch-
work of state AI and privacy laws. A small business selling online
should not have to navigate dozens of conflicting state rules simply
to use common digital tools. Congress should establish a clear na-
tional framework for data privacy and AI. These frameworks
should protect consumers, promote trust, preserve innovation, and
provide strong federal preemption.
A first step is that Congress should pass the Secure Data Act.
The Secure Data Act is a comprehensive privacy legislation that is
based on a consensus of state privacy laws signed into law by 10
Democrat governors and 15 Republican governors that protects
over 150 million Americans across the country. It would give Amer-
icans the right to delete their data and opt out of certain AI
profiling.
With regard to AI specifically, we should adopt a risk-based,
technologically neutral, flexible, and proportionate framework. Con-
gress should also support the foundations of AI adoption: workforce
development, broadband access, reliable energy infrastructure,
modernized permitting, government technology systems that reduce
burdens on small businesses like streamlined permitting.
The question before this committee is not whether AI is going to
change small business, it already is. The question today is what
policies can Congress put in place that encourage the adoption of
this technology and further maximize this transformation to benefit
small businesses? With the right approach that provides flexibility,
certainty, and a clear standard, AI can help entrepreneurs grow,
compete, and serve their communities. The Chamber stands ready
to work with this Committee to ensure that AI works for main
street, strengthens American competitiveness, and keeps the
United States at the forefront of innovation.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Qaiyum for his 5-minute opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY QAIYUM, PRESIDENT, MERZ
APOTHECARY
Mr. QAIYUM. Chairman Williams, Representative Cisneros, and
Members of the House Small Business Committee, thank you for
the opportunity to testify today about how artificial intelligence is
helping small businesses like mine compete, grow, and create jobs.
My name is Anthony Qaiyum and I am the owner of Merz Apoth-
ecary, a 151-year-old family-owned business in Chicago. We sell
natural health, personal care, beauty, and fragrance products
through our historic retail store, our website, and online market-
places like Amazon. Altogether, we employ more than 60 people.
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When I started, I believed technology could help our unique
neighborhood store reach people across the country and around the
world. We launched our first e-commerce website in 1997 and be-
came one of Amazon’s earliest small business sellers in 2004. Look-
ing back, those decisions changed the trajectory of our business.
Today, I believe artificial intelligence represents the next major
leap forward for small businesses. AI gives businesses like ours af-
fordable access to capabilities that were once available only to large
corporations with multimillion-dollar budgets.
Many of these tools offer free versions or are integrated into ex-
isting platforms we use. For example, Shopify’s native AI can
produce on-demand sales reports in just minutes that used to take
hours to build. Over the years we have accumulated decades of
emails, spreadsheets, sales records, and operating documents in
Google Workspace. We can now simply ask Gemini where some-
thing is stored and what it says, turning our historical institutional
knowledge into something we can find and use instantly.
In addition, AI helps us streamline repetitive administrative
work so our employees can spend more time serving customers.
Right now we are building an AI agent to handle routine accounts
payable work that takes one employee more than 20 hours a week,
hours we would rather have her helping with strategic problems to
grow our business.
Like many small businesses, we don’t have the budget to hire a
full-time chief financial officer. But today I can securely upload our
financial statements into AI tools like Claude or Gemini and re-
ceive a thorough analysis of cash flow, inventory, investments, op-
erating expenses, payroll trends, and potential financial risks.
Lastly, and perhaps my favorite example of how AI is helping us,
we recently hired a national sales manager for KOBO, our small
home fragrance manufacturing business. This is a new position. I
knew what I wanted her to learn during the first few months, but
I didn’t have the time to organize everything into a structured
onboarding program. Using AI voice transcription and writing
tools, I talked through my ideas and the AI turned them into a
comprehensive knowledge guide along with a detailed 30-, 60-, 90-
day onboarding plan. She later told me it was the clearest roadmap
she had ever received when starting a new job.
All these examples illustrate the larger impact AI has had on our
business. It has helped us make better use of our employees’ time,
strengthen our operations, and grow. Since we started using AI,
our headcount has increased by about 20 percent from just over 50
employees to more than 60, and we are still hiring.
As Congress considers AI policy, I urge you to focus on measures
that help small business adopt and benefit from AI-powered tools.
First, we need a clear, balanced national framework rather than a
burdensome patchwork of conflicting state AI and privacy laws.
Navigating different rules across all 50 states is difficult at best
and expensive or impossible at worst.
Second, AI-powered tools are just becoming affordable and acces-
sible for businesses like mine from features built into platforms
like Shopify to standalone tools like Claude and Codex. If new rules
make these tools more expensive or harder to use, it could push AI-
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powered technology out of reach, once again making these capabili-
ties available only to the largest companies.
Lastly, Congress should invest in AI literacy. SBA programs, tax
incentives, or workforce training initiatives could help small busi-
ness owners and their employees learn how to use these tools effec-
tively. Every employee who becomes proficient with AI becomes
more valuable, more productive, and better equipped for the jobs
of the future. Even in our business, which is embracing AI, many
of our employees lack formal training on how to maximize its po-
tential. With the right support, more small businesses could help
their workers use AI confidently.
For 151 years, Merz Apothecary has adapted to changing tech-
nologies and markets. AI is the newest chapter in that story. It is
helping us compete, innovate, hire, and better serve our customers.
I hope Congress will pursue policies that keep AI tools accessible
for American small businesses and make it easier for millions more
to adopt them.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Hoang for his 5-minute opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF FRANCE HOANG, FOUNDER AND CEO,
BOODLEBOX
Mr. HOANG. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Cisneros, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me
here today. My name is France Hoang.
In 1975, when I was a small boy, American forces evacuated my
family from Vietnam. That single act gave me a new life. It let me
graduate from West Point, serve as an associate counselor to the
President, and later deployed to Afghanistan as the executive offi-
cer of a Special Forces company. It also let me become an entre-
preneur. Over the past 15 years I helped start a law firm, Fluet;
a defense services company, MAG Aerospace; and today I run a col-
laborative AI company, BoodleBox. Today, more than 130 small
businesses run a BoodleBox and over 100,000 students and faculty
and more than 1,000 colleges use it to teach and learn.
Together, the companies I founded employed more than 1,200
Americans. So when this Committee talks about small business, I
have lived that journey multiple times.
This Committee has already done real work to help small busi-
nesses through bills like the AI Main Street Act and the AI-WISE
Act. That work matters. But I have learned something on the
ground. Getting access to AI is no longer the hardest part. Basic
AI is cheap and it is everywhere. A small business owner in Detroit
can reach more AI computing power today for almost nothing than
a Fortune 500 company could buy 5 years ago. The trouble is what
comes next. The premium AI that delivers real results still costs
real money. And a new divide is opening up between Wall Street
and main street.
There is a second problem, and it is bigger. The most powerful
AI is useless if you don’t know how to use it well. Most small busi-
ness today are handed the keys to a Ferrari and sent down the
equivalent of a muddy road. Too often, what comes out only looks
finished. And when someone has to redo it, it is what now we call
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work slop. On main street today, and even more so tomorrow, the
businesses that do not learn how to collaborate with AI will not
just fall behind, they will fail.
When I sit with small business owners, I hear the same things
over and over. They are exhausted, they don’t have time to learn
new tools, they don’t have staff to run them, and they don’t have
budget to hire help. And they fear that once their data goes into
AI tools, it stops being theirs. They are right to be careful. It is one
of the reasons we built BoodleBox to be private by design. Not only
do we have best-in-class security, but we never allow our cus-
tomers’ data to be used to train AI models. In fact, we are one of
the few platforms approved by the House’s own chief administra-
tive officer for use by your staff. A small business owner deserves
the same assurances.
I have seen what this looks like when it is done right. The Uni-
versity of Michigan runs the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs
Project. It serves more than 400 small businesses a year. More
than 9 in 10 of them are minority owned. Last year, they put
BoodleBox in the hands of all those entrepreneurs with the coach-
ing to use it well. One of them is Tekeyah Gaines, who runs a com-
pany called GT Coffee. Through BoodleBox, she picks the right AI
model for each task: one to price her products, another to build her
marketing. As a result, her average order has grown from $38 to
$47. AI let her grow before she had the resources to hire. She
didn’t outsource her judgment to AI. She amplified it.
I would like to leave you with three requests. First, fund the
roads, not just the cars. Put training and real support behind the
Small Business Development Centers that the Committee has al-
ways strengthened with the AI for Main Street Act. Second, protect
small business data so no owner fears that using AI means giving
their work away. Third, take care that the rules meant to do good
do not wall out the small. Compliance that only the giants can af-
ford will hand this technology to big companies and lock out those
who need it the most.
Throughout its history, America has provided opportunities that
let small business owners thrive and prosper. In this era of rapid
change due to AI, it is our responsibility to ensure that those op-
portunities not only remain, but expand. To do so, we must not just
hand small business owners a faster car. We must help them build
better roads, better roads worth driving on. Main street, I guar-
antee you, will take it from there.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Aguh for his 5-minute opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF CHIKE AGUH, HEAD OF INNOVATION &
STRATEGY, KAPOR CENTER
Mr. AGUH. Good morning, Chairman Williams, Ranking Mem-
ber Cisneros, and Members of the Committee. I want to thank you
for this invitation to testify today. And I will say as a former con-
gressional intern who walked these halls two decades ago, it is a
remarkable full circle moment and very much proof of what is pos-
sible today in America.
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My name is Chike Aguh. I serve as head of innovation and strat-
egy at the Kapor Center. And through the Kapor Foundation and
Kapor Capital, the Kapor Center has backed more than 200
startups and fledgling businesses since 2011 that make healthcare,
childcare, education, and housing more affordable today in Amer-
ica.
Few topics matter more than the intersection of artificial intel-
ligence and the small businesses that power this nation. If you re-
member nothing else I say today, remember this: the rise of AI car-
ries both promise and peril. They are both real. Our shared respon-
sibility is to capture that promise and mitigate that peril.
For small businesses the promise of AI is very clear. Generative
AI and AI agents can remove many of the very barriers that pre-
vent entrepreneurs from starting and scaling businesses, from mar-
ket research to back office capacity to navigating regulations.
Last year, Matt Rosenberg in California left his marketing job to
open a Thai restaurant with his wife, a fourth-generation cook from
Bangkok. When the storefront lease proved unaffordable, AI sur-
faced a rare home kitchen permit they never knew existed, cutting
their startup costs by more than 90 percent and turning dense reg-
ulations into simple checklists. This February, Bangkok Rush Thai
Kitchen opened in Alameda, California, about 12 minutes from our
home office. And when Matt was asked what he would have done
without AI in this situation, he simply said, I would have just
given up. Matt’s story captures the promise of AI, making entrepre-
neurship possible for all, not just for some.
But the peril is just as real. And it is threefold and it is impor-
tant to name. First is trust. Right now, AI adoption, and there are
ranging definitions and estimates of adoption, varies across small
business and it is nowhere near where I think we want it to be.
And I think what we would like to say at the Kapor Center is tech-
nology moves at the speed of innovation, but adoption moves at the
speed of trust. And right now that trust is still being earned by this
technology in the marketplace.
Secondly, concentration. If AI and the knowledge of how to use
it is only concentrated in the largest firms, the gap with main
street is going to only widen.
Lastly and third, fitness for purpose. If these systems are unreli-
able or poorly governed, then small businesses are left to navigate
these risks alone, unable—as a former White House Deputy Na-
tional Cyber Director Camille Stewart Gloster has warned, they
would be unable to protect their intellectual property, their con-
sumers, or their competitive advantage.
So the promise or the peril, which will we live into? It is easy
to feel like this will happen to us, but at the Kapor Center we like
to echo President Kennedy where he says things do not happen,
they are made to happen. And so for the future that we want, how
do we make it happen? And we would say that there are four parts
to that answer.
First, we will have to ensure that small business leaders have
both AI literacy and practical guidance on where AI creates the
most value. The bipartisan AI-WISE Act and the AI for Main
Street Act are promising first steps, and we hope they are only the
beginning.
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Second, we must help firms build AI-ready workforces. An AI-
ready workforce is one that is not just AI literate, but AI native,
fully comfortable working alongside these tools, but also strength-
ening their unique human skills that AI for now cannot replace:
leadership, communication, interpersonal connection, and judg-
ment.
Third, we need a national framework for AI governance. We be-
lieve commonsense guardrails like those in the AI Civil Rights Act,
which we endorse, build trust by preventing unlawful AI discrimi-
nation, requiring transparency for critical uses, and providing real
accountability. We also need consistent rules of the road on secu-
rity, privacy, and intellectual property so that entrepreneurs, this
is what is so important, can spend their time serving customers
and not navigating AI risk.
Fourth, government must be a partner and a pioneer, not a bar-
rier. Government should show the way by partnering directly with
AI native companies to solve societal ills and take down the bu-
reaucratic barriers that 6 percent of these companies say are bar-
riers to their scale and to them serving communities. If those part-
nerships could happen and just make a 2 percent improvement on
many of the nation’s biggest challenges, we could unlock over $100
billion of GDP for this nation every year.
At the Kapor Center, we believe that America is stronger when
there are more entrepreneurs in it, not fewer. We must listen to
them, make sure these solutions reach them, regardless of who
they are and where they live. If these solutions that we are debat-
ing here are not felt in places like my home county of Prince
George’s or El Paso, Texas, or Appalachia or the Ozarks, we will
not get the next generation of small businesses.
And so I want to thank the Committee for having me. I want to
start that we believe this is—and say this is a time of great prom-
ise and peril, and that we believe this future will not just happen,
it will be made to happen.
Thank you so much.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
And we will now move to the Member questions under the 5-
minute rule. I will recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Qaiyum, Merz Apothecary has been a fixture on the Chicago
street corner, as you said, for 150 years. But through
smallflower.com you are now competing nationally. Imagine a cata-
log of more than 14,000 products with a staff of around 50 and as
a national retailer would have entire departments handling that
kind of merchandising, product discovery, and online marketing.
Can you walk us through briefly? AI has let your team take on that
used to require the resources of a much larger company, and where
has it closed the gap with larger competitors and where does it still
fall short?
Mr. QAIYUM. Yes, thank you for the question, Chairman.
You know, when you are running a small business, as I have
done for about 28 years, and I have worked in the corporate world,
in the corporate world you have departments who can—you know,
a department for every task. And in our business and in most
small businesses, one, two, a small handful of people are wearing
all of the hats across—that would fall across a much larger cor-
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poration. So for us, the way we use AI is often I think of it as we
are looking for ways that we can take the simple work and the
tasks away that we have to do so that we can focus on the deeper
work that helps our business grow. So that might be like the exam-
ple I gave matching bills to invoices, which is obviously important
and we can’t exist if we don’t do that. But it isn’t necessarily the
best use of a human’s time because we have a lot of other things
to do. So that would be a simple example.
And then in marketing, you know, nowadays, we are able to test
our marketing across the country to all types of segments. And we
used to sit there and think should we test this ad for this segment
in this part of the country or for this group of people? And it isn’t
really realistic to do all the testing you need to do to succeed as
a small business. So now we are able to use the AI to test across
a lot of different creative and target customers. And it has been a
huge help for us. Those are two examples.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. Mr. Crenshaw, research
shows that nearly three-quarters of small businesses are now using
AI, but the headline number surely hides a lot of variation. Ques-
tion is, how representative is that data across different sectors and
regions? And what separates the small businesses that are success-
fully adopting AI from the ones falling behind?
Mr. CRENSHAW. As we look at the data, you know, 58 percent
of small businesses, according to our survey nationwide, are using
generative artificial intelligence. Now, if you look at the higher
adopters, that tends to be smaller tech firms, it is around 70 per-
cent adoption rates at that point. Entertainment companies that
are smaller, it is around 65 percent. But then when you dig down
in the numbers, you know, you still have about half of retailers,
restaurants, traditional brick-and-mortar companies are using gen-
erative artificial intelligence to grow and thrive.
In fact, had a chance to talk with the owner of a skincare com-
pany in the Coachella Valley, who has been able to use generative
AI to help her cut costs by sourcing products from places with
lower tariffs or lower costs due to inflation, so she doesn’t have to
pass those costs on to consumers. And so it really is a mix of the
type of companies that are using this across all sectors.
But at the same time, what we have found, though, the compa-
nies that are not using generative artificial intelligence, about a
third are worried about the regulatory uncertainty that is out
there. About one in five believe that they can’t find the workers
who are properly trained at this point to actually use generative AI
and make it work for them. And then another third are really, you
know, still not sure how it will work for their business. So it is one
of the reasons why it is so critically important that we establish
clear national frameworks on the regulatory side, like the Secure
Data Act on data privacy, create a national AI framework that is
workable. And we also have training programs in place, like the AI
for Main Street Act and AI-WISE Act, that help small businesses
really get their head around how to use small business—or AI re-
sponsibly.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Mr. Hoang, in the short time that I have
got left, from your work with BoodleBox, what does AI literacy re-
alistically look like for a typical main street owner and their em-
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ployees? And how can platforms like yours and the broader train-
ing ecosystem help them build those skills in a way that supports
running the business rather than becoming another burden on
their time?
Mr. HOANG. Very briefly, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think AI
literacy has three components. First, domain expertise piece. You
have to know what questions to ask, what context to provide to be
able to evaluate AI outputs.
Second, AI enablement, knowing when and how to use AI. Not
every problem requires an AI solution, but if it does, what are the
tools and how do I use them responsibly?
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. And so those
combination of those three things are what we need for today’s
workforce.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay, thank you. My time is up.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Me and my colleagues and I were deeply concerned when we saw
the President’s executive order on AI published in December. There
are several concerning elements to this executive order, but the
most concerning is a requirement by establishing a uniform federal
policy framework for AI that preempts state laws on AI as well as
data centers.
I support strong federal AI regulation and I think it is important
that we have that. But I am worried that this EO punishes states
like California, my home state, that are proactive and forward-
thinking enough to harness the benefits of AI while also creating
guardrails against potential harms, especially because this EO re-
moves all state laws without putting any safeguards in place.
Mr. Aguh, can you share with a preemptive—can you share why
preempting state AI laws can be harmful without any strong regu-
latory safeguards?
Mr. AGUH. Sure, Congressman. Thank you so much for the
question.
And I think for us, the Kapor Center, we very much think the
best way forward is a single national framework for AI governance.
In lieu of that, we do not think the best approach is no regulation.
We believe that right now, if I cannot have national regulation,
then someone needs to step in. And right now, states are stepping
forward to create those safeguards. One can argue how optimal
that is, but we would say it is more optimal than having no regula-
tion or protection whatsoever, particularly for this topic that we are
talking about today.
If you talk to many small businesses about why they may not be
adopting it, it is because they are unclear about what the rules of
the road are and what protections exist for them, whether it be
around their data, around their security, around civil rights. And
having those rules, even if they are state-based rules, can actually
be a tool to increase trust, which can increase adoption, which I
think we have all said on this panel is to the benefit of small busi-
nesses in their communities.
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Mr. CISNEROS. Yeah, and, like you said, the trust is the impor-
tant thing. Right? That is what is going to allow more people to use
this tool.
So, Mr. Aguh, in your testimony you said government should be
a partner, not a barrier. Now, Rep. Jack and I introduced the SBA
IT Modernization Reporting Act to address challenges at the SBA
in carrying out IT projects that support small businesses. I am glad
to hear it unanimously passed the House and now a Senate com-
panion is being introduced. How counterproductive can it be to
small businesses if government agencies like the SBA improperly
utilize AI?
Mr. AGUH. Again, Congressman, thank you so much for the
question. It can be harmful in two ways. One, the government is
in some ways an influencer and a leader for so many other types
of industries across the country. When there are misuses at the
federal level, it can potentially, frankly, incentivize and almost cre-
ate cosigning for those misuses in others. That is one.
Two, when there are bad effects of those misuses, it creates a
chilling effect for other folks who may want to partner with AI—
native AI-driven companies. And we think it is why the SBA, we
want to be pioneering, but also strategic in terms of how they use
it, so they can actually show the way for what right looks like in-
stead of highlighting what wrong can look like. And we believe if
that happens, more small businesses will be able to do more at
every level of government and at every sector to improve their com-
munities and improve problems around the country.
Mr. CISNEROS. All right. Thank you for that.
Mr. Hoang, I loved your example about the University of Michi-
gan and how they are teaching companies how to use AI. Moving
forward, as you said, literacy is very important. What role should
the SBA play in this when it comes to literacy? AI ensuring that
small businesses know how to use these tools and use them prop-
erly to their benefit.
Mr. HOANG. Yeah. As we saw in places like Detroit, when you
combine access to the tools with the training and coaching to use
them, well, that is when you see results. The SBA obviously has
the resources and the reach to provide that type of training and re-
sources. Obviously, private industry has a role to play as well, but
the reach of the government is much greater and particularly in,
you know, urban America, in downtowns, in the far reaches of past
the last stoplight of rural America. I think the SBA can really
make an impact in terms of providing resources necessary for the
responsible and collaborative use of AI.
Mr. CISNEROS. Mr. Crenshaw, same question to you. What role
should the SBA play in AI literacy?
Mr. CRENSHAW. We believe that SBA should play a funda-
mental role in AI literacy. It is one of the reasons why we support
the AI for Main Street Act and the AI-WISE Act.
Mr. CISNEROS. All right. Thank you for that.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Van Duyne from the great state of Texas for
5 minutes.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
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You know, small businesses really do drive the economy, I would
say, throughout the country, but especially in North Texas, and AI
seems to be giving entrepreneurs new tools that were once out of
reach for all but the largest of companies. It is helping owners save
time, make better decisions so they can focus more on serving cus-
tomers and growing their businesses. And on this Committee we
are working alongside the Trump administration to remove a lot of
the barriers and to help small businesses to put these tools to
work. Washington should be building on that progress without cre-
ating new uncertainty or unnecessary costs for small businesses so
that businesses of every size can benefit as America continues to
lead in AI.
Mr. Crenshaw, AI is already helping small businesses compete
with much larger firms. Washington needs to be careful, as I men-
tioned, not to regulate away that advantage, but, at the same time,
business owners need confidence that their customer data, the fi-
nancial information, proprietary work are secure. So as we consider
some of these privacy concerns, what do you think that we should
be looking at first and how can we address real risks without cre-
ating new compliance burdens that will make AI less accessible to
main street companies?
Mr. CRENSHAW. It is an excellent question. And, you know,
there is a reason that Texas small businesses are using AI. Eighty-
six percent of them grew their workforce, the ones who used it, but
they have concerns. Sixty-two percent of Texas small businesses
are worried about a patchwork of state AI and privacy regulations,
creating an environment where small businesses incur the costs
and don’t reap the benefits and can’t compete with larger compa-
nies.
I think there are really two things that really can be helpful in
creating a regulatory environment for AI. One is passing national
data privacy legislation. The Secure Data Act is currently in front
of the E&C Committee right now. It is legislation that is based in
large part on the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act and also,
along with 19 other states across the country, as a model for pri-
vacy legislation that would put consumers in charge of their data
and give them the right to delete it, correct it. But at the same
time, we also do need a national AI framework as well that pre-
vents a patchwork from emerging.
And I think as we look at that, one of the first things we have
to do is address where is AI already regulated? We need to do a
gap analysis to see where the laws can already play a role in pro-
tecting people. We already have laws in the books that protect
against discrimination, privacy in over 20 states, consumer protec-
tion laws in 50 states. We have an FTC Act that protects con-
sumers on a national level. And then at that point, there needs to
be a real discussion about a risk-based framework that is targeted
and tailored for those areas of harms where the law has not caught
up with the technology.
One example of that is the Take It Down Act, which was signed
into law, which would have criminalized the distribution of deep
fake revenge images and also given consumers a right to take those
images off websites and off the internet. So that is really where we
feel a balanced approach is.
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And I think as we look at AI regulation, it is important to note,
you know, even if there is preemption of specific AI regulations
across the country, there is still a backstop of these laws of general
applicability, like consumer protection, discrimination, and privacy.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. I appreciate the answer, by the way. I have
asked a number of CEOs and founders to sit in the largest AI com-
panies, and that was the best answer I have gotten. Very complete
and well thought out. I appreciate that.
Mr. Hoang, in your testimony, you discussed the importance of
both proprietary and open models to small businesses, including
the importance of open models due to cost. Can you kind of expand
on the current state of the closed and open model ecosystem and
how small businesses use both types to operate and build their
businesses?
Mr. HOANG. Yeah. To be clear, I am neither pro open or anti
open or pro closed or anti open closed model. I believe in choice.
Choice provides competition. It provides the consumers the oppor-
tunity to use the models that are best. We obviously are familiar
with the closed models that are kind of on the frontier edge. There
is also a number of open models that are very close. They are driv-
ing down the cost to access these capabilities.
I built my platform on this idea of choice. You can choose what
models you want to use in collaboration, so you can get the best
of models working together. I think we need more competition in
the sense of more access to both closed and open models so con-
sumers can let competition do what it does best, which is produce
the best products and services for America.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. I appreciate that very much.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. McGarvey from the great state of
Kentucky for 5 minutes.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for having this hearing today. I think it is incredibly im-
portant for us to be talking about AI as it relates to small business.
As you all have pointed out, AI is not something that is coming.
AI is here. We see it right now in Louisville, Kentucky. I see busi-
nesses who are successfully using AI in a lot of the ways you all
describe, right, which is actually taking some of the more—the
tasks that take hours upon hours upon hours to do, and then free-
ing up their employees to actually do the work that is central to
the business. So see a lot of good applications.
Have a lot of questions, too. Right? And see a lot of fear from
people who are afraid that AI is going to take their job entirely.
This is the kind of thing where, like, AI, I mean, could quite lit-
erally cure cancer or potentially be used to develop a type of bio-
logical weapon. It is the type of thing where AI can be used to help
spur creativity, but we don’t want to see it ripping off the beautiful
sound of someone’s voice or taking the hard work and creative en-
ergy that goes into music and products and taking that and taking
it away from us.
How do we replace and how do we protect people whose liveli-
hoods are easily replaced by AI? How do we balance the needs for
privacy with the needs for safety and security? And you guys
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talked about some of these things. So at the root of each of these
questions, I think, is what I spend the most time thinking about
when we think about AI right now. How do we make sure that AI
is used for good? And this is something that I think is really impor-
tant work of this body right now.
And Mr. Crenshaw, I am going to start with you because you tes-
tified before the Science Committee all the way back in 2022 about
the ethical development of AI, and I am not being facetious when
I say all the way back in 2022. When we talk about AI, 2022 was
a very, very long time ago. We could be talking about the beginning
of this year, and it might be a long time ago in the way that AI
is developing.
But I want to hear a little bit more about this, and I wanted to
hear from you. What do you think the role of Congress is in ensur-
ing that we develop AI that is ethical, that does good, and is used
for good? And tell me in any way if some of your views have
evolved since 2022.
Mr. CRENSHAW. It feels like a long time. A lot has happened.
A lot has changed since I testified in front of the House Science
Committee. We have now seen the rise of new types of AI, for ex-
ample, and more news about frontier models and agentic artificial
intelligence and the rise of chatbots over the last few years.
But I think one of the things that has been helpful in govern-
ment, and was actually released during the Biden administration
was, the release of the NIST AI Risk Management Framework,
which provides a great roadmap toward businesses of all sizes to
examine and look at how they are using artificial intelligence to ad-
dress risks to things like privacy and other potential harms that
could come out. It is one of the reasons why the Risk Management
Framework is iterative and meant to be reexamined to make sure
that it is catching up with the technology. And that is exactly what
is happening right now. NIST is currently reviewing and making
changes to that Risk Management Framework right now.
It is also putting out profiles for different use cases for artificial
intelligence. For example, just recently in the last year released a
risk profile on generative artificial intelligence. It is now working
on one on critical infrastructure. But it is also possible that NIST
could also examine ways for small businesses to more easily look
at how to use artificial intelligence in an ethical manner.
So that is the way government is already working. But, you
know, at the same time, you know, there are other things that we
think that can be done. For example, Kentucky led the way on data
privacy legislation. A super majority of Republicans and Governor
Beshear, a Democrat, enacted Kentucky’s data privacy law, which
has rights around AI. It has deletion rights. And we think that
that is the right model for the United States in terms of passing
national privacy legislation, which would be a building block to get-
ting us to understanding how data can be regulated, so then we
can start looking at more of the broader AI pieces.
Mr. MCGARVEY. No, thank you. I appreciate you saying that.
And this is one where I wish, I think all of us probably wish, we
had more than 5 minutes.
And this is an issue I don’t want to see get political, but you
mentioned the importance of NIST. I have to point out that this ad-
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ministration, the Trump administration, has fired over 700 NIST
employees and the fiscal year 2027 budget requests proposing 53
percent of that agency’s funding. I think when we are talking about
how do we use AI for good, how do we have this framework, an
agency like that really is important for helping us develop those
tools. I also appreciate you bringing up data privacy.
Unfortunately, I am running out of time, but really appreciate
you guys being here. Appreciate the information you provided. This
is something is going to be so necessary for small business, for ev-
eryone to be able to compete, for us to develop the right framework.
So appreciate you guys being here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Alford from the great state of Missouri for
5 minutes.
Mr. ALFORD. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good to see you
and everyone coming in today to testify on this very important
matter.
Artificial intelligence is quickly transforming the way Americans
live and work, and nowhere is that more evident than on main
street. And that is what we are concerned about here in this Com-
mittee. What was once viewed as a technology only available to the
largest of corporations is now becoming available and affordable for
small businesses all over our great nation. Whether it is helping
a manufacturer optimize production, allowing a family-owned re-
tailer to better manage inventory, improving customer service, or
reducing the administrative burden on small business owners, AI
is giving entrepreneurs new opportunities to grow, to innovate, and
to compete.
At the same time, many small businesses still face significant
challenges when it comes to adopting these tools. Business owners
often tell us that they don’t know where to begin. They worry about
protecting customer data. Many simply lack the time or technical
expertise to evaluate the growing number of AI products entering
the marketplace.
We here in Congress, I think we have a very important role to
play to make sure that innovation is encouraged, not hindered by
unnecessary regulation, while also making sure small businesses
have access to the education and resources they need to use this
technology wisely to grow their businesses.
Mr. Crenshaw, I was proud to introduce the bipartisan AI for
Main Street Act along with my colleague, Representative Scholten.
And this legislation would utilize the Small Business Development
Center network to provide practical AI training, cybersecurity best
practices, data protection guidance, and technical assistance. The
House passed this bill by an overwhelming bipartisan vote because
we recognize here in Congress that AI adoption is about more than
simply providing access to technology. It is really about giving en-
trepreneurs the confidence to use it effectively.
From your perspective, how valuable would this type of locally
delivered technical assistance be? And what additional resources
should Congress consider to make sure main street businesses can
successfully adopt AI? Sir.
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Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, first and foremost, want to thank you for
your leadership and sponsorship of the AI for Main Street Act. It
is a critical step to ensuring that small businesses know the tools
available to them, know how to use them in a proper and ethical
manner. And it is a reason why it is so important. As you look at
your home state, 87 percent of Missouri’s small businesses using AI
have grown their workforce. So it is—this is why we need to get
these kind of tools in front of them.
So we think it is incredibly important that this bill pass in the
Senate along with the AI-WISE Act. And then also SBA has the
funding it needs in order to successfully promote AI adoption for
small business.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you. Mr. Qaiyum, a big concern that I have
heard from our constituents when I am doing town hall meetings
or coffees with people in small businesses, we are in those small
businesses regularly when we are back in our district, they are con-
cerned about AI replacing employees, especially entry level roles.
In your experience, has AI replaced workers or is it more of a tool
to allow workers to be more productive and more competitive for
those small businesses, competitive with the big guys?
Mr. QAIYUM. Thank you for the question, Congressman. At
Merz, in my experience, it really is a competitive advantage, and
it is, I would say, even more, it is a bandwidth advantage. And by
that I mean in my almost three decades running a small business,
I have never felt that there was a lack of opportunity. There was
just a lack of time, money, and resources to tackle the opportunity.
So for me, it feels like what we have experienced is that using AI,
my team is able to go after bigger opportunities and help our busi-
ness grow, even the entry-level folks.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you. Mr. Hoang, last question. What are
the biggest obstacles that small businesses face after they decide
to use AI? And what has helped your small business customers
turn AI from a project into an everyday business tool?
Mr. HOANG. I would say, thank you for the question, two things.
First, where to begin? AI, that chat window can seem like a lot of
promise if you are an AI early adopter. For someone who is not fa-
miliar with AI, that seems like an ocean you get lost in. So it turns
out AI is actually very good about teaching you about AI if you use
it right. It is one of the interesting kind of components of the tool.
The second is we hear a lot about prompt engineering and the
need to be able to ask AI the right questions. In my opinion, what
I have seen the most powerful use of AI, it is actually about context
engineering. It is what you tell the AI before it gets started. And
so educating business owners on how to use the context they are
already sitting on, their customer data records, your past perform-
ance, your past contracts, and how to feed that into AI in a way
that is safe, secure, and private, that really unlocks the power and
potential of AI.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you. And I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mrs. McIver from the great state of New Jersey
for 5 minutes.
Mrs. MCIVER. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
Member, for convening this hearing today. I want to thank each of
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our witnesses for joining us today on a heat wave here in Wash-
ington, D.C., so stay hydrated.
Artificial intelligence is often described as a tool to help small
businesses become more productive and reach new customers. But
its value depends entirely on the safeguards we put in place. To-
day’s AI systems still reflect deep biases, raise serious cybersecu-
rity risk, and operate with little transparency. While large corpora-
tions use AI to strengthen their advantage, many small businesses
are left behind. We are not doing nearly enough to ensure that
small businesses can access and benefit from these technologies on
fair terms.
AI’s rapid growth depends on the massive expansion of data cen-
ters, which place heavy burdens on local communities, local elec-
tricity grids, water supplies, infrastructure, and people, especially
in my district in New Jersey’s 10th. These projects often move for-
ward with little transparency or input from the communities most
effective. That is why I introduced my AI Data Center Site Selec-
tion Transparency Act, which would bring an end to surprise AI
data center construction. If we are serious about encouraging inno-
vation, we have to protect small businesses and communities that
bear the cost of this transformation.
Mr. Aguh, spent a lot of time talking about this in your opening
testimony, which I can appreciate about how AI has some potential
to increase productivity, but it also has millions of America’s work-
ers wondering what will happen to their jobs due to increasing AI
use. I want to elaborate a little bit more of what one of my col-
leagues talked about, Mr. McGarvey, about Americans in the work-
force and how AI impacts that.
Mr. Aguh, how would small businesses or how should small busi-
nesses think about using AI to assist their employees rather than
replace them?
Mr. AGUH. First of all, Congresswoman, thank you so much for
the question. And I think this is a place where I think history is
helpful. If you think about in the past, in the manufacturing space,
and you think about when someone running a factory was trying
to figure out how to make the line run faster, the first place they
went was they went to their employees and said, you work on the
line. Tell us how we can make this line 10 percent faster, 15 per-
cent faster, and the workers generally delivered. And I think the
same ethos is important here.
When business leaders are implementing AI, the people who
must be intimately involved are the workers, particularly on the
front line, who are using it. One, because that is ideally the types
of workplaces that we want. But secondly, they have, in many
ways, the best ideas for how to make sure that that AI can be used
to actually create the efficiencies that we want. What can I take
off my plate that will make me better able to serve our customers,
grow our business, serve our community? So I think that is number
one, include workers in that process. And usually when I talk
about these fronts, there are about 10 people, 20 people, many of
which—and in many ways those relationships are already being
created.
I think the second piece is, and you have heard, I think, across
all the witnesses, which is we have to be investing in their skills
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now. Again, how do we make folks AI native so that they know
how to use these tools? The same way that we expect workers to
be able to use Microsoft Office or Google Docs, same way this is
going to become that level of table stakes. Therefore, how do we in-
vest in that proactively now before it truly is a barrier to employ-
ment?
I think the third piece, this is particularly true for small busi-
nesses, and you heard this from my example for Bangkok Rush
Thai Kitchen, which is in many ways small businesses need to
think about what is not happening in my business that AI can help
make happen versus what is the thing that is happening now that
potentially could be done by someone else? And when you have,
again, businesses of 10 or 15 or 20 people, there are lots of things
that aren’t happening because they just don’t have the arms and
the legs to do it.
So those are the three things that I would say: include workers,
make sure they are trained, and then thinking through strategi-
cally what is not happening in my business that AI could help
make happen.
Mrs. MCIVER. Got it. Thank you for that. And many of you, I
think each of you actually talked about the need for AI literacy,
right, for businesses. In your opinion, what investments in work-
force training will be necessary to help workers adapt?
Mr. AGUH. I think it is two things, or if I put it in two buckets.
One is just literally training folks on the tools, again, the same way
that there are still classes that you can take on Microsoft Word and
Excel. And you have much content out there, a lot of it either low
cost or no cost, which is good. I think we particularly need to make
sure this gets to the, frankly, the most in need, underserved work-
ers, the most underserved communities, whether those be urban or
rural, because that is—because those are usually the folks who get
that information last.
I think the second piece, and I say this as someone who used to
work at the Department of Labor, is how do we make sure that
those human skills, again, leadership, communication, are empha-
sized? And that is where things like work-based learning are really
important. You learn those skills not by hearing about them, learn-
ing about them, but you learn them on the job. So apprenticeships,
hire to train, hire to train/deploy apparatus are really, really crit-
ical. So more work-based learning and then more targeted knowl-
edge of how to use these tools.
Mrs. MCIVER. Got it. Thank you so much for that.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I am out of time. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ms. King-Hinds from the Northern Mariana Is-
lands, the great islands, for 5 minutes.
Ms. KING-HINDS. The amazing Northern Marianas. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hoang, of the things that resonated with me was your state-
ment that, hold on, excuse me, that the tool is only the car. The
road is training, coaching, and support. And as the Chairman has
mentioned, I represent the Northern Mariana Islands and one of
our biggest challenges often, just our remote geography and our
very limited access to technical expertise. So if Congress could do
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one thing to ensure that AI doesn’t widen the gap for remote, iso-
lated communities like mine, what would that look like? What
would that investment be?
Mr. HOANG. Thank you for the question. I would say, obviously,
pass the two acts that came up from this committee, right, the AI-
WISE Act and the AI Main Street Act that activates the, you know,
SBA and the Small Business Development Centers to provide that
training and expertise, and the government can reach all around
the world, right, even to those territories and states that are fur-
ther afield. So I would say pass those acts.
And second, continue to have these discussions, continue to have
these hearings and bring businesses small and large. The world is
changing fast. As one of the representatives noted, if we have this
discussion 6 months from now, the world is going to be different.
Ms. KING-HINDS. Yeah, I agree. There has been a lot of—I
think most of the panelists have touched on workforce develop-
ment. And, you know, that is something I am particularly inter-
ested in as, you know, this new technology continues to change on
a daily basis, if not by minutes. Right? And I just kind of want to
flesh out some of your thoughts on what we should be doing in
terms of investing to be able to prepare our workforce for this new
technology.
And I will start with you, Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, I think it is important to note, too, in ad-
dition to AI training, as we are looking at building out the infra-
structure for AI, we are going to need training in that as well, too.
You know, we have seen a rise in apprenticeship programs for
things like electrical work to help out build out the infrastructure
that is necessary for artificial intelligence. So it is a reason why
many of the companies we work with are working to get people
trained in those skills as well.
But it is also fundamentally important that we have small busi-
ness owners trained on how to use this technology. And it is one
of the reasons why the Chamber launched its Small Business Ba-
sics program. But also, as we are looking at education, we need to
begin developing programs where K through 12 has some degree of
AI built into it, postsecondary education as well, too, building AI
into those curricula, and into an interdisciplinary approach in a lot
of ways in higher ed. And so it really is going to be an across the
board strategy necessary to ensure that we have an AI-ready work-
force.
Ms. KING-HINDS. All right, thank you.
Mr. Qaiyum, did you want to chime in?
Mr. QAIYUM. Yes, thank you. Right now we are probably more
advanced than most small businesses of our size in using AI. But
that is because I happen to be into technology, and other leaders
and I in our business have been pushing ourselves and our teams
to do it. But even in our company, we feel like it is a challenge to
get the rest of the company to adopt it. So I think that it is impor-
tant to come up with programs, ideally through the SBA or other
means, that help us train workers and let them experience the ad-
vantages that come from learning how to use these tools well.
Ms. KING-HINDS. Mr. Hoang, did you want to say something as
well?
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Mr. HOANG. Yes, thank you. We are privileged to work with al-
most 170 colleges and universities on their teaching and learning
with and about AI. What artificial intelligence needs is more actual
intelligence. And it is that combination that allows us to unlock its
potential.
If you think about the nature of work, right? Defining a problem,
designing a solution, creating that solution, validating it, AI makes
those middle two steps easier and cheaper than ever. But the key
isn’t those two steps. The key is what comes before. Am I using AI
for the right problem? And what comes after? Does this solution ac-
tually work in the real world? And so workforce readiness, maybe,
ironically enough, isn’t about learning how to use AI and the tools.
It is learning how to apply them to the real problems and to solve
real problems in the world.
Ms. KING-HINDS. Mr. Aguh, you have the rest of my time.
Mr. AGUH. I think the only thing that I would add here is more
real world. You might have kind of heard it in the last answer,
which is, again, for those of us who are athletes at any point in
our lives, you didn’t read a book on how to do a jump shot or throw
a football. You did it in the field with a coach. And I think right
now, AI is, ironically, showing the need for more work, true in the
field, in the place of work training and learning, so folks can learn
to use these tools in real time. Classes are good. Real life experi-
ence is better because we are learning how to use these tools be-
cause they are evolving so fast.
And so I think that was the only thing I would add here, which
is how do we make sure that people, really young people, are get-
ting to use these in the field, not just in the classroom.
Ms. KING-HINDS. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Tran from the great state of California for
5 minutes.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, and
thank you for our witnesses for being here.
AI is no longer a technology of the future. It is already changing
how main street does business. From helping a family-owned busi-
ness manage inventory to allowing a new startup to reach new cus-
tomers, AI has the potential to make small businesses more pro-
ductive and more competitive if we use it well.
As someone who represents Southern California, I see both the
promise and risks every day. L.A. County and Orange County are
home to a booming AI and tech innovation ecosystem and also
home to thousands of immigrant-owned small businesses that are
worried about what AI means for their livelihoods.
There is a broad bipartisan agreement that America should lead
the world in AI innovation. But leadership also requires rules of
the road. That is where Congress has fallen short. We still don’t
have a clear national framework for AI governance that addresses
safety, innovation, and equal opportunity.
Indeed, access to AI is not equal. In many minority communities
access to high-speed internet, modern devices, digital skills, and
language-accessible tools remain uneven. This digital divide simply
does not disappear during time of rapid AI adoption. It deepens.
This is why AI literacy must come a become a national priority.
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Small business owners should know not only how to use AI, but
also how to identify its risks, protect sensitive business data, recog-
nize bias, and make an informed decision about when AI should
and should not be used. That education has to reach every commu-
nity, including immigrant entrepreneurs, who are often among the
most innovative small business owners in the country.
The largest corporations already have the resources to adopt AI,
manage compliance, and pay for future subscription costs. Many
small businesses do not. If we fail to close that gap, AI could accel-
erate market concentration and leave main street struggling to
compete. We need to make sure that this doesn’t happen. Congress
needs to invest in AI literacy and establish thoughtful federal
guardrails to ensure that AI becomes a tool for innovation and op-
portunity, and not another barrier to success.
Mr. Hoang, given your background, we both know the opportuni-
ties that this country provided our families, and we both chose to
give back through military service before pursuing entrepreneur-
ship. Your story is a powerful reminder of what the American
Dream can look like. In your testimony, you make an important
point that the challenge today isn’t only access to AI, it is also
readiness. You say many small business owners have been handed
the keys to a Ferrari and sent down a muddy road. I never got that
Ferrari key, by the way. But can you explain how important AI lit-
eracy is for consumer and entrepreneurs?
Mr. HOANG. Thank you, Mr. Tran. And I appreciate your serv-
ice as well given our shared heritage.
Let me just draw that analogy a little wider. So we tend to think
of AI like a faster car. Let’s just do whatever we are doing today
and just do it faster and better with AI tools. But if you think
about it, a car is not just the faster horse. All right. A car requires,
first, infrastructure. It requires training. It requires rules of the
road. A car requires you to build the roads that can handle how
fast the car can go. And most importantly, a car can go to places
horses can’t. And so in many institutions, organizations, public and
private, we treat AI like a faster car. We simply do what we were
doing before, just do it faster.
I would argue the key to AI adoption and the key to AI in small
businesses is to rethink the roads, to ask ourselves where do we
want to go? And it may be a place we could not go to before. It may
mean that a business that didn’t have access to marketing tools be-
cause they couldn’t afford it, now all of a sudden does. It may mean
that a business that couldn’t expand its market, could. AI enables
these new opportunities, but only if we build the better roads, only
if we build the privacy, the data protections, only if we provide the
training, and only if we ensure that the regulatory environment
doesn’t overly burden small businesses compared to large busi-
nesses.
Mr. TRAN. Let me follow up and ask you, is AI literacy a chal-
lenge right now in this country?
Mr. HOANG. Yes, it is absolutely a challenge.
Mr. TRAN. Can I ask to read all the panelists going down, start-
ing with Mr. Crenshaw, if you agree?
Mr. CRENSHAW. Yes.
Mr. QAIYUM. Yes.
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Mr. AGUH. Absolute yes.
Mr. TRAN. Okay. Then let me follow up with this. Should there
be a dedicated funding, federal funding, to help bolster AI literacy
nationwide?
And let’s go down the panel. Mr. Crenshaw?
Mr. CRENSHAW. We should have public-private partnerships
that work together.
Mr. TRAN. Accept that.
Mr. QAIYUM. I am not an expert on how it gets done, but I
know we would appreciate it in our business.
Mr. HOANG. Same answer here. I believe public-private partner-
ships and, you know, from there a wide variety where we get AI
literacy.
Mr. TRAN. Mr. Aguh?
Mr. AGUH. Yes, but we will need public investment.
Mr. TRAN. Okay. Thank you very much.
And Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Fuller from the great state of Georgia for 5
minutes.
Mr. FULLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hoang, and, Mr. Crenshaw, you may weigh in on this, too,
so my wife is a small business owner. I am a prosecutor by trade.
So if you remember the old caveman lawyer, your AI world fright-
ens and confuses me. So one of my concerns for small businesses
on main street and the Appalachian communities that I represent
is no different than the software you may use in a business. You
know, someone will sign a contract, and then maybe a year or 2
years into it, maybe it is not delivering. I think you used the term
‘‘AI adoption.’’ Maybe it is not what they needed.
How can we create an industry and framework to make sure that
for that AI adoption on main street that these businesses have the
opportunity to become—get the AI that they need to actually grow
their business and not get into, you know, 24-month contract for
something that is not responding to their needs?
Mr. HOANG. Thank you for the question. There is a lot of AI
available, some of it is free, a lot of it you can buy month-to-month.
I don’t think the locking is a problem. What is a problem is context.
Right? There is going to be a fight for the context in which we pro-
vide our AIs and the context that emerges when we use AI. And
I believe that users should have the ability to move that context
from platform to platform. We do that inside my platform in the
sense of like you can share context between different models. So if
today Claude is the better model, you use that. If tomorrow Gemini
is the better model, you use that. And so I think being model ag-
nostic in what you create is the right path forward for industry
providing these types of tools.
Mr. CRENSHAW. I think it is important, too, as companies are
looking at which AI to deploy, they shouldn’t have AI be the solu-
tion for its own sake. They should actually go in with an identified
set of challenges they are trying to solve for and then look for the
AI solution that is best talented or best positioned and targeted for
solving those issues. So, you know, I think that is one of the rea-
sons why it is so important that we do have facilitated AI training
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and education so small businesses can get smarter about what
tools might be better for them.
Mr. FULLER. And I wanted to ask you about that, Mr. Cren-
shaw. So when you are talking about a public-private partnership,
because if I am thinking about a small business in one of my main
streets, I mean they don’t have the time to think strategically and
have big thoughts on like what are those questions to help me, A,
with literacy and then the inputs that I need for the AI to improve
my business because they are worried about, hey, I can’t even get
someone to show up for a shift. And that is going to, you know,
ruin my Mother’s Day, which happened to my wife where someone
didn’t show up to a shift, I don’t have the certificate to go in and
do her shift at her business, she has got to fill it on Mother’s Day.
So for those business owners that don’t have the time to think
big thoughts about what AI is appropriate for them, what does that
public-private partnership look like so you can get that AI literacy
for a small business to say, this is what I need.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, I think that is one of the great things
about the AI for Main Street Act and the AI-WISE Act are put to-
gether. They complement each other. The AI-WISE Act provides a
lot of online tools and online availability of information. The AI for
Main Street Act would work with SPDCs basically to have more of
those localized trainings and localized education efforts as well.
It is also one of the reasons why, you know, we think it is impor-
tant that the business community itself takes a role in providing
training. We at the Chamber have worked with local and state
chambers of commerce to do trainings for local small businesses as
well on AI through the Small Business Basics program.
But also, too, I think it is important for individual businesses to
be forward-thinking. One example is Hrag Kalebjian, who is the
coffee shop owner I mentioned in my opening testimony, who is
using AI for cutting his marketing down by about 70 percent. But
what he does is he actually has an innovation hour with his
baristas and his staff at the coffee shop to just go through how can
AI help them and kind of going through new AI solutions to get
them tooled and ready, even if they don’t stay at his coffee shop
to go on somewhere else. So it really is different aspects of the eco-
system when it comes to AI that have a role to play.
Mr. FULLER. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Goodlander from the great state of New
Hampshire for 5 minutes.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
our witnesses for being here for this really important hearing.
You know, one of the through lines in this hearing has been a
very powerful point that each of you have made, which is that get-
ting access to AI is right now not the hard part for small busi-
nesses. The hard part is actually ensuring that a family-owned fu-
neral home in Berlin or a home builder in Brookline or a daycare
in Keene can actually put this technology to use. And equally ur-
gent, whether 5 years from now or 5 months from now maybe is
probably more accurate, that small business will still have the le-
verage over the platforms that they built their businesses on.
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Mr. Hoang, thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your
service. You know, your testimony has laid out for us a really clear
vision of what doing it right looks like, what closing the readiness
gap looks like. And I want to ask you, you know, our resources are
limited. We are fighting tooth and nail for every dollar and many
dollars that this administration is withholding from my state of
New Hampshire that could actually go to solve and close this readi-
ness gap. With limited resources, how could we scale up a model
like the one you describe in your testimony, the Detroit Neighbor-
hood Entrepreneurs Project? How could we scale this up? What
would be your first concrete steps that we could take to scale up
this model?
Mr. HOANG. So I believe in public-private partnerships. A lot of
the work we do at BoodleBox is with colleges and universities.
They are the front door to democracy. Today’s college students are
tomorrow’s workers. Obviously, state and federal funding and gov-
ernments, you know, are intertwined closely with higher education.
You know, I would like to see greater support for AI literacy at the
place where it counts I think the most, right, during the formative
years of someone’s development just before they enter the work-
force.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I did want to ask about this. You make the powerful point that
we got to fund the roads, not just the cars. To me, part of the road
is connectivity itself. I represent one of the most rural districts in
the country. And access to high-speed broadband is for many of my
small businesses a core barrier to the adoption of AI tools. Can you
speak to this in the rural small businesses you have worked with?
And can you just—you agree that connectivity is part of what it is
going to require for us to build the roads?
Mr. HOANG. Yeah. Absolutely, Representative. In my written
testimony, I talk about a rural family in Oklahoma. They live well
past the last stoplight. Because they have good connectivity, they
are able to access AI. They are able to have a marketing team, a
development team, a business development team that is AI-pow-
ered that they would not otherwise have access to. But obviously,
if they can’t access the AI, they can’t have access to those potential.
And so connectivity is really a fundamental foundation for this ac-
cess to the AI economy.
Ms. GOODLANDER. It is. And I just want to say the Broadband
Equity Access and Deployment Act, the BEAD program, has been
so mission critical. We have got $21 million that is currently being
withheld from the state of New Hampshire that could go to exactly
this problem.
Mr. Aguh, I want to ask you, thank you for your testimony and
for the powerful points that you have made about the role of com-
petition and the real perils that small businesses are up against.
Before I came here to Congress, I was an antitrust enforcer. So I
think a lot about what the scales have looked like and could quick-
ly look like for small businesses. Can you talk to us about examples
that you have seen in your work of AI applications that have actu-
ally made small businesses better able to compete with large domi-
nant companies?
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Mr. AGUH. Sure. First of all, thank you so much for the ques-
tion. And I think, let me step back for a second to say, I think I
have seen two things that have helped this. One, you need to feel
confident about transparency, for a small business to be able to
know: is this tool doing what I need it to do? That is hard right
now because the technology moves so quickly. So being able on the
front end to know what you mean to have solved and then actually
able to track them on a regular basis is so important because that
is the first step to know when I need to switch.
I think secondly, to get to the answer to your question, where we
have seen the biggest advantages in a couple areas. First, qualified
lead generation. Meaning if I am a business who sells by getting
on the phone and trying to sell my wares, getting a qualified list
of who those folks might be versus just picking up the phone book,
super helpful. Using tools like LinkedIn, that is one.
Secondly, back office capacity, whether it be accounting, tax com-
pliance, things like that, being able to track all that and make sure
that I am proactive versus reactive.
I think the last piece, marketing. So many small businesses don’t
have a website. So many small businesses are not advertising in
any way, shape, or form because they can’t hire a designer. AI can
make those things happen.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
And I recognize Mr. Meuser from the great state of Pennsylvania
for 5 minutes.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to our wit-
nesses. Certainly a lot to talk about. And my apologies, we have
other Committee responsibilities, many of them today.
Mr. Crenshaw, I would like to start with you, please. You know,
in business, I used to look at technology in the early 2000s as it
is either a weapon that is used against you or a weapon that you
use to benefit your company. AI certainly fits into that category
and then some. What are the challenges small business are facing
as far as, you know, of course, there is privacy? There is, you know,
cyber ransom challenges, I mean, the onslaught; the competitive
nature of AI, whether you are there or not, and the usefulness of
it. So maybe just give us a quick 30 seconds on what main feedback
you are getting from your Members.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Uncertainty in the regulatory environment is
a major barrier. It is the reason why 57 percent of small businesses
in Pennsylvania are worried about a patchwork of regulations that
leads to uncertainty.
Mr. MEUSER. Okay.
Mr. CRENSHAW. You know, I think examples of that are we
have a good base in about 20 states for data privacy legislation, but
we see other states that are operating on the margins and trying
to take more extreme approaches to regulation. We have seen those
states, for example, craft legislation with the intent of only having
their state attorneys general regulate to provide some certainty.
Unfortunately, we have seen instances where the trial bar, for ex-
ample, has gotten creative and used laws never designed for con-
sumer privacy to have gotcha lawsuits for basic things like col-
lecting cookies.
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So if you are an auto dealer who has a chatbot just trying to get
in touch with, you know, a potential customer, we have seen auto
firms that have been sued with smaller ones for—with demand let-
ters from people who were never even customers using these inva-
sion of privacy statutes that had nothing to do with consumer pri-
vacy. We have seen hospital systems even sued under this as well
in Pennsylvania. And it is why we need reform of this type of liti-
gation abuse that we are seeing across the country.
And then it really goes to the heart of why we do need a national
AI framework as well. If we have a state-to-state patchwork there,
it will be highly problematic because only the larger companies are
going to know how to actually comply and compete, and it is going
to leave small businesses in the dust.
Mr. MEUSER. So basically, one of the most useful tools we have
had in a long while to create productivity and efficiencies and effec-
tiveness, one of your biggest challenges is government involvement
and intervention primarily at a state level?
Mr. CRENSHAW. I think at this point if you look—let’s look at
data privacy, for example. There was a great survey that came out
from ITIF that showed that if we have a 50-state patchwork of
data privacy laws, it will cost the American economy $1 trillion
over 10 years. Two hundred billion of that is going to be incurred
by small businesses.
Another example, I think if you look at the California Consumer
Privacy Act, there was a rulemaking that came from that that was
finalized just last year regarding automated decision systems, re-
garding cyber audits, regarding privacy risk assessments. The
agency took a one line part of the California Privacy Act and
turned it into a half-billion-dollar AI rulemaking. When you com-
bine that with the full rulemaking with things like privacy, the
agency estimated it was going to cost small businesses $16,000 an-
nually to comply.
Mr. MEUSER. Wow.
Mr. CRENSHAW. So that is just one state.
Mr. MEUSER. We will take it seriously of what you are saying
here. Thank you.
You mentioned about Basel III, basically that access to capital
is—will be a very, very important right now, particularly with what
we passed in the Working Family Tax Cut portion of the BBB
where we have better bonus depreciation and better tax incentives
for investment. So clearly that is something that is important.
I am going to move on to Mr. Qaiyum. In your business, and con-
gratulations, Merz Apothecary, how is AI helping you? And it was
interesting the way you said how it now allows you to compete
more so against the so-called bigger guys. Maybe you can talk
about that a little bit.
Mr. QAIYUM. Sure. Thank you, Congressman. You know, I al-
ways—there is a mantra that when you study small business or
you look at the business leaders out there, they always say to work
on your business, not in your business. And for most small busi-
ness owners, that is just like it is a dream, but it is never reality.
And I feel like in the past year since we have been using AI more
heavily in our business, it is the first time where I feel like our
leadership team has been able to work on the business. And when
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you are a small business owner, so much of your thoughts, the rea-
son I lose sleep is how do we make sure something doesn’t happen
because it is small and you feel like, you know, a pandemic can
come along, anything can come along and take that away, so.
Mr. MEUSER. Is the AI investment you are making cost prohibi-
tive or you can——
Mr. QAIYUM. Not at the moment. The privacy laws are the big-
gest concern about using it right now.
Mr. MEUSER. Great. Thank you, gentlemen, very, very much.
Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Dr. Morrison from the great state of Minnesota
for 5 minutes.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you very much, Chairman Williams and
Ranking Member Velázquez, for holding this hearing. And thanks
so much to the witnesses for being here today.
Over the past years, we have been talking about this all morn-
ing, we have seen rapid developments in the field of AI. AI tools
of all kinds are readily available and some have the potential to
support entrepreneurs. But I do worry that as tech giants race
ahead to push out their next AI model, there is insufficient atten-
tion on the actual utility of this technology to our small business
owners and, frankly, to the American people.
Too often AI development narrowly focuses on finding out what
AI is capable of, rather than answering the question how can this
technology be used to improve people’s lives? Now we find our-
selves in a situation where many people are asking who even want-
ed this and will this technology help me or will it actually hurt me
or maybe even kill me?
Mr. Aguh, in your testimony, you highlight that technology
moves at the speed of innovation, but adoption moves at the speed
of trust, and that trust has not yet been earned. I think this is a
really important part of this whole conversation. You go on to high-
light that this lack of trust is reflected by the majority of Ameri-
cans feeling that AI’s risks outweigh its benefits and the slow adop-
tion of generative AI by American small businesses. You know,
Rep. Tran touched on AI literacy.
Mr. Aguh, can you share steps that tech companies could take
to build America’s trust in AI?
Mr. AGUH. First of all, thank you so much for the question. I
think this is a really important point.
I think I go back to a point that has been made, I think repeat-
edly, which is one thing that creates trust is beyond any company,
but it is having a national set of frameworks around what are our
rules of the road around AI, from security to privacy to bias to civil
rights. Having a single set of rules that we all know, understand,
agree upon, and can trust it.
I think secondly, having more collaborations between the public
and the private sector like these companies to solve really large
issues, again around things like—some examples here are things
like the Claude Corps, basically Claude Anthropic working with
nonprofits to teach them how to use these tools for the betterment
of the work that they do in their communities. Small example, but
a good one, and we would love to see more there in that vein.
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I think lastly, helping small businesses pick the tools that are
right for them, even if those tools are not their tools, I think that
is really important. Consumers and small business leaders having
those choices is so important. I think right now you have to make
sure—it is tempting to believe that everything is a nail and that
is amenable to the AI hammer or a particular AI hammer. And
helping these small business leaders pick the exact hammer for the
exact right nail is so important. It might be Claude, it might be
ChatGPT, it might be a Midjourney, it might be a Notion. But how
do we basically figure out what those tools are and putting that
agency in the hands of small business leaders I think is really key.
The last point, small business leaders also reflect the feelings of
their workers. So the more that workers become more comfortable,
again are involved in these decisions, figuring out how it can ben-
efit the business, the better off their employers are going to be and
more trusting their employees will be with these companies.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you so much. And I am sympathetic to
this idea that if we have a patchwork of state regulations across
the country, that creates all kinds of complications. Could any of
you give two specific examples of what a federal framework would
look like for regulating AI?
Mr. CRENSHAW. One of the notes I think important to note, 68
percent of small businesses in Minnesota are worried about a
patchwork. And one of the solutions can come out of Minnesota is
copying Minnesota’s data privacy law and making it the national
standard. And so that is a——
Ms. MORRISON. Love that answer. Sorry to interrupt.
Mr. AGUH. I would say one piece that is not talked about
enough is intellectual property, meaning when a lot of intellectual
property was created, back when it was, this use was never
thought of, never considered. So whether I am Universal Music
Group, who regulates, you know, 30—has 30 percent of the world’s
music, or, candidly, I am a bluegrass artist from Kentucky, I may
never have thought of what happens if my music used by this. And
we need a framework to govern how I say it can be licensed, how
I am compensated, how I want to be compensated, and by whom.
Right now, we just don’t have a framework for this because back
then we didn’t think that this would be possible. So that is one ex-
ample of an issue that is under talked about that is really, really
key and a big trust issue.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you. I am running out of time, but one
quick last question. You know, before I ran for Congress, I worked
as an OB/GYN for many years. So as you might imagine, patient
confidentiality is critically important. And one of the pieces of AI
regulation that I think is crucial is that data privacy question. And
I think it is something that people are worried about, too. And I
know small business owners also have concerns about it. How can
we protect patient privacy?
Mr. Aguh, do you have any thoughts on it?
Mr. AGUH. I know I am over time, so I am looking at the Chair-
man to——
Chairman WILLIAMS. I will give you a little extra time.
Mr. AGUH. Sure. I think, candidly, we already have a lot of
health privacy laws, and I think the question is how do they inter-
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sect with this new technology? And so I think that is the question.
How do we take existing relations and expand it to this new tech-
nology? And I will stop there out of respect to the Chairman.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Bresnahan from great state of Pennsylvania
for 5 minutes.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
and to all the witnesses for being here today.
Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has become a part
of nearly every corner of our economy. And small businesses have
increasingly embraced these tools to help them compete and to
grow. Whether it is summarizing research, analyzing data, stream-
lining customer service, or organizing documents, AI has allowed
small business owners to compete in minutes, which used to take
hours or even days. But there is no question these technologies can
make businesses more efficient. But we continue to adopt AI, we
also have to make sure that those gains don’t come at the expense
of American jobs. We need to make sure employees have the train-
ing and skills to use these tools efficiently and AI enhances the
work rather than replacing it.
So I am going to—my first question for Mr. Qaiyum. Congratula-
tions to you and your family and everyone at Merz Apothecary on
celebrating 150 years of service to your community. My question
would be, at what point did you decide to take the initiative to
start looking at different AI implementation?
And something that I hear from a lot of small businesses and
coming from a small business background was sometimes, you
know, the local plumber, heating contractor doesn’t even know
where to begin. So at what point for you in your business did you
decide that, hey, in order for us to scale, in order for us to grow,
we need to be thinking outside the box and finding ways to imple-
ment some sort of AI technology?
Mr. QAIYUM. Thank you for the question, Congressman, and for
your congratulations.
You know, I came to the retail and small business, this industry,
through the dot-com rise in the ’90s. So I have always been into
technology and so I may be a bit rare in that sense that I view it
as my—as part of my role in the business has always been to stay
ahead of the technology curve. So I have been following it for a few
years now at least, and I have been the person testing it out on
the weekends and at nights to see what it could do, and then bring-
ing it to the team and saying, look at this. So I feel like for me,
I happen to be personally interested in it, but I know that that is
not most of my small business friends, the other business owners
on the block. So I think, you know, we do need support in that
sense.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. So you have been around for 150 years. What
generation are you in the business?
Mr. QAIYUM. I am the fifth owner in the second family to own
the business, so.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. Wow. So what was the first piece of tech-
nology that you implemented that was in the ecosystem of AI? Was
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it just utilizing language models to respond to inquiries or to sum-
marize research? What was like that initial barrier that you over-
came?
Mr. QAIYUM. Yeah. You know, we used some early language
models around coming up with variations, like we would write mar-
keting copy and then come up with 10, 15, 20 variations on that.
And that was many years ago, but I would say ChatGPT in the
past few years was the first model that I started using kind of, you
know, as an experiment on my own.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. My last question would be, and then before
I divert over, have you actually needed to bring anyone on that had
experience in managing AI models or has that been something that
you have been able to sustain with inside of your operations?
Mr. QAIYUM. So far we have sustained inside of our operations.
And, you know, the models are getting to the point where when we
don’t know something, they can kind of often guide us on how to
do it. So I call us sort of like, you know, pseudo techies in a way.
But I think we are at the point now where we would like to bring
someone in who has more experience because we see so much op-
portunity ahead.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. I think that is what we need to be curtailing
some of our educational opportunities and teaching the next gen-
eration of workforce how to work with inside of these parameters.
But also being very conscientious of we are not looking to replace
jobs. We are looking to add jobs, specifically to the skill set relating
around artificial intelligence. And I think when you say AI, it is a
very broad spectrum of innovation that could be implemented.
So I am going to pivot over to Mr. Hoang. What are the biggest
challenges you see small businesses facing when they begin imple-
menting AI? And what kind of advice could I take back to some of
my small businesses that are right on the cusp of considering to
take the leap just to kind of give them some assurances and relieve
the agita about taking that initial plunge?
Mr. HOANG. Thank you for the question. I will try to be brief.
The main two challenges are, first, just where to get started. What
are the use cases? AI can do so much, so what is the first thing?
And I always advise businesses to start with the problem that is
most important at hand. What is the thing that bothers them day
to day? That is where to get started.
The second is AI is only as good as the information you put into
it, the context. A lot of businesses are fearful of putting their pro-
prietary data in. That is unfortunate because that is how you get
the best results from AI. And so the advice I would suggest you
take back is get started and find a platform where you feel the pri-
vacy and security allow you to use your data.
Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you. Garbage in, garbage out. I yield.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Scholten from the great state of Michigan
for 5 minutes.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Madam Ranking
Member. Thank you to our witnesses today.
Our small businesses juggle a wide range of responsibilities and
tasks every day to keep their operations running. While AI offers
tools to help streamline many of these needs, we know that many
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entrepreneurs simply don’t have the time or resources to utilize
this technology to its fullest. That is why I was so proud to intro-
duce my bill, the AI-WISE Act, which directs the Small Business
Administration to create learning modules for small businesses to
help them navigate this emerging technology. I am pleased that my
bill passed the House earlier this year. We are, of course, hoping
to have it signed into law.
Mr. Aguh, how would an SBA resource to help entrepreneurs
think about AI usage more effectively, how would that benefit
small business businesses?
Mr. AGUH. It will benefit hugely. One, because, again, we talk
about kind of the promise and the peril. You have heard, I think,
from a number of the witnesses, you need certain tools and means
to actually capture that promise. And the first thing is knowledge.
So knowing, again, where I can apply this most in my business.
Should I apply it toward my inventory issue? Should I apply it to-
ward my back office? Should I apply it to my marketing first? Get-
ting guidance on where to start with that I think is really helpful,
one.
I think, two, small businesses are unclear. Okay. How do I intro-
duce this with my workers? That is a hard part of this, particularly
when you are in a small business, because there is fear, there is
lack of knowledge, there is uncertainty. What does that changed
management look like?
And then I think the third piece is how do I monitor these tools
over time? The ubiquity of these tools, the amount of these tools
is only useful to the extent that I know enough to switch when I
need to. Therefore, what am I doing to monitor these tools over
time to make sure, hey, you know, what actually is ChatGPT here
versus Claude? Or I need to use a Perplexity here versus another
tool or there actually isn’t a gap. Right? There is a gap right now
in terms of the market for what I need.
I think those are three specific areas, where to apply, how to do
changed management, how to monitor over time, where a resource
like this could be really, really valuable.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Yep. Yep. West Michigan is home to our re-
gional Small Business Development Center, SBDC, which served
over 500 clients last year and spurred $10.4 million in capital for-
mation. These centers are foundational to the success of our local
economies. And on a national level, America’s SBDCs partnered
with Google AIU to facilitate training SBDC staff across the coun-
try to assist clients with using AI in their operations. Not sure if
you are familiar with that. Michigan now has the second highest
number of staff trained in AI literacy in the country. We are super
proud.
Mr. Aguh, again, how important is it that SBDCs receive full fed-
eral funding and support these kinds of activities? And I will actu-
ally open it up to the whole panel. I saw some heads nodding. You
know, feel free to weigh in on usage there.
Mr. AGUH. I cannot overstate how important the resource and
not just the funds, but also the people.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Yeah.
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Mr. AGUH. Because in the end, what we find is most people,
they want to talk to people about how to use these tools. And that
does require resources.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Additions, additional comments or thoughts on
that?
Mr. QAIYUM. I would echo that. I think with our team often-
times it is not enough to just keep hearing how good it is or watch
this video. I think it is having some structured format and people
who demystify it and provide a doorway in. And my experience is
that once you give someone that doorway, then they can actually
go really far.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Yep. In my remaining time, I want to talk
about a different bill of mine, the SBA AI Adoption and Reporting
Act. It is really important for small businesses to have the tools
they need, right, to use AI effectively. But the federal government
also has the opportunity to utilize AI for its own purposes and its
own operation. The SBA is no exception. From evaluating con-
tracting bids to improving research and programming, the govern-
ment can take steps to ensure AI is working for main street in
every single way from within the administration itself. That is why
I introduced the SBA AI Adoption and Reporting Act, which would
direct the SBA to implement AI use disclosure policies and proce-
dures as required by law and recommended by the Government Ac-
countability Office.
How could this help address small businesses’ concerns about the
government’s use of AI? Those people who might say I was weeded
out because I didn’t fit the algorithm, you know, or they have con-
cerns about that. Any reflections from your work? I will open it up
to the panel again.
Mr. QAIYUM. Well, our business is the beneficiary of an SBA
loan—that almost didn’t happen at one point because of some of
the challenges with the banks and everything. I would say that my
experience would be having transparency and help along the way
to make that an easier process would have been a huge help for
our business. And thankfully, it did work out, but I would like to
see more businesses get that opportunity that we had.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Heard. Heard. Thank you. Thank you.
Well, thank you again, gentlemen, for coming, for your time, and,
most importantly, for your incredible work in small businesses
across the country. Thank you.
I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Jack from the great state of Georgia for 5
minutes.
Mr. JACK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I would like to begin my line of question by recognizing
someone in the audience with us. Alex Mealer is in the audience
with us from Houston, Texas, the great state of Texas. So I am de-
lighted that she had a chance to get to see how Committee proc-
esses work.
And I would like to start my first line of questioning with Mr.
Qaiyum. And, you know, a question I have for you, and it is some-
thing that I hear a lot within my district, is there is a natural fear
that AI could replace workers and especially within entry level
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roles. And I am just curious, in your own experience, has AI re-
placed people or has it helped you bring more people in? What is
your perspective?
Mr. QAIYUM. Thank you, Congressman. In our experience, AI
has helped us bring more people in. It has created more oppor-
tunity. So I look—you know, AI right now is this new, exciting, po-
tential big advantage for small business. But ultimately, it will be
software and it will become a commodity. And I think humans are
the durable advantage that you have. So to us, we look at it as a
way to—or as a method and a set of tools to help us increase our
capacity and then bring more people on. And when we are serving
our customers better and in a specialty business knowledge—we
speak, I think, 10 languages on our staff, and have experts across
various fields, including pharmacists, makeup artists, certified
herbalists, you name it—so that is not going to be replaced. People
like to talk to people. So we see it as a creative opportunity.
Mr. JACK. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hoang, the same question to you.
Mr. HOANG. Yes, if you are a small business of one to five em-
ployees, there is not many people to replace. Right? AI actually en-
ables you to grow your business faster and employ more people.
I would also like to note there is this interesting concept called
the Jevons paradox. What it says is if you look at a broad enough
time horizon and you look across enough industries, technology
ends up creating more jobs over time than it replaces. Technology
will replace jobs. But as we saw past technological revolutions,
right, new jobs emerge.
I have an 11-, 8-, and a 6-year-old. I think I heard the statistic
that 66 percent of the jobs that a 10-year-old is going to have don’t
even exist yet.
Mr. JACK. Thank you very much.
Mr. Crenshaw, I would like to speak specifically about an initia-
tive, specifically President Trump’s SBA in collaboration with Per-
plexity AI recently launched, as you may be aware, the main street
AI accelerator, which offers computing credits to small businesses
that hold SBA-backed loans. Do you believe that a program like
that is the right model when approaching the AI gap? And what
would make assistance in this capacity most useful to owners who
need it most?
Mr. CRENSHAW. I think it is incredibly important that there is
AI training and AI accelerators. So I think this is an opportunity
where small businesses can grow.
And I think—and I want to really kind of echo the points of some
of the other panelists is that, you know, as we look at AI, AI is
doing much like what we saw at the turn of the 20th century. With
the turn of the 20th century, technology brought about an indus-
trial revolution. Well, now we are seeing technology create an en-
trepreneurship revolution where small businesses and small com-
panies can get off the ground and run and grow. And 82 percent
of small businesses and Georgia grew their workforce, the ones who
are using artificial intelligence.
This is confirmed in many ways, too. We have seen some great
studies as well by Ramp, came out recently, that showed that the
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more companies are investing in artificial intelligence, they are
growing their headcount at faster rates.
And then finally, I think it is really important to note, too, that
the Federal Reserve has put out really great data over the last few
years. And as you see, the number of small business applications
over the last few days decades, it was pretty stagnant up until
about 2020. That number skyrocketed after 2020. Many thought
that that was in large part due to COVID and people kind of start-
ing out on their own. But those numbers have continued to go up
post introduction of ChatGPT and generative artificial Intelligence.
And that has been a sustained increase in new business starts.
And so when you look at all of that, I think we are optimistic
about the impact of AI, but it is important that we also have train-
ing and accelerators for small businesses to ensure they reap the
full benefits.
Mr. JACK. Wonderful. In our closing 40 seconds, you mentioned
Georgia. Both my colleague Clay Fuller and I represent districts
that in some places need broadband access. Could you speak to how
imperative it is that we are able to ensure that all of our constitu-
ents across the country have access to broadband internet that en-
ables them to potentially enjoy some of these resources?
Mr. CRENSHAW. Broadband is essential to operating in the 21st
century economy. A small business cannot compete without access
to connectivity and to data.
Mr. JACK. Wonderful.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you convening this hearing, and I
yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ranking Member Velázquez from the great state
of New York for her 5 minutes.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to
all the witnesses for being here. And I am sorry I wasn’t when you
were making your statements because I was participating in an-
other hearing on financial services.
Mr. Aguh, I concur that transparency in AI and information on
AI is crucial. And for Members of this Committee and other com-
mittees of jurisdiction regarding AI policy, accurate data is impor-
tant in order for us to make effective AI policy. Estimates for small
business AI adoption rates vary widely. The SBA’s Office of Advo-
cacy estimates the rate is 8.8 percent, but the U.S. Chamber esti-
mates that it is at 58 percent, a nearly 50 point gap. Why does this
difference exist?
Mr. AGUH. Well, probably a long answer, but, candidly, it de-
pends on how you define adoption. Is adoption an employee who
uses ChatGPT to answer a question once or twice a day or is it
kind of working truly side by side with a number of AI tools to do
your work? That is a wide definition.
What I would say is when I think about the 200 businesses that
we support, or even ask any CEO in the private sector currently,
no one will say that AI adoption is where they want it to be. All
of them would say that their workforces are not where they want
to be to get the full value for their business and for their commu-
nity.
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And so the question is, how do we increase that adoption? And
I think that goes to the trust questions, that goes to the infrastruc-
ture questions, goes to the literacy questions. But I think right now
it depends on how you define adoption. But if you were to ask a
CEO what do they want from adoption? They want—I want my
people using AI to do the things that people shouldn’t be doing and
so they can do the things that only people can do so that our busi-
ness grows, we make more revenue, and we help our communities
and grow jobs.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you. And bias and discriminatory deci-
sion-making are major AI risks. How can this harm small firms
and incur legal and reputational costs?
Mr. AGUH. I will use a very specific example. This actually
comes from my time when I was serving federally. But we would
hear from small businesses who were using AI-driven resume and
hiring tools to comb resumes, to begin to kind of sift out people for
that first round. And what they began to find, this particularly be-
came an issue during the pandemic, was at times people who could
do the job were unintentionally screened out, which, of course, for
the business created a problem of there is an empty billet of some-
one who could have done a job and now that job is not being done.
That is one very specific example where not only do we—does that
type of bias offend our values, but it also goes against kind of com-
mon sense, the interest of the business.
So the key is how do we make sure that we mitigate bias not just
for our values, but for the sake of the business who’s actually try-
ing to get the benefit? It is the right thing to do, but it is also the
smart thing to do.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. So can training data be adjusted to reduce
bias?
Mr. AGUH. The answer is yes. But the important thing is that
that is not on the small business. It can’t be.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Yeah.
Mr. AGUH. They are not making the tool. This goes to, I think,
the largest folks who are making these tools and the key thing that
I would say is it is in their interest to do such. If I am a small busi-
ness and I am creating a tool, I want it to reflect my community
so I can serve my customers better. Tools that don’t do that are not
going to help me serve my customers.
So if I am a provider, an LLM provider, Hyperscale is trying to
create a tool, you want to help your customers help their cus-
tomers, and having representative data that actually reflects re-
ality and the outcomes that it produces is best for everyone.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you. Mr. Hoang, you write in your test-
ing testimony the principle behind the AI-WISE Act, that federal
support should remain neutral among specific tools and vendors, is
exactly right. Why? What are the consequences if the SBA and
other agencies favor certain vendors over others?
Mr. HOANG. Thank you, Ranking Member, for the question. We
are in the very early days of AI. It is too soon to start picking win-
ners and not winners.
In our own work with hundreds of organizations, we see that dif-
ferent tools are right for different purposes and that organizations
that succeed don’t just rely on one single AI tool. They use different
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tools, they combine them, they bring humans. I truly believe the
future of work and teaching and learning are multiple AIs and
multiple people working together in a collaborative environment.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
And I would like to thank our witnesses for their testimony
today and for appearing before us. It has been great dialogue.
Without objection, Members have 5 legislative days to submit ad-
ditional materials and written questions for the witnesses to the
Chair, which will be forwarded to the witnesses. I ask the wit-
nesses to please respond promptly.
And if there is no further business, without objection, the Com-
mittee is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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APPENDIX
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Æ
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