Sunday, November 01, 2026
Management Capability Development funding can cover up to half of one-to-one business training for eligible NZ businesses. Here is who qualifies, what it covers, what it does not, and the order to do things in.
Short answer: it depends on the question. The U.S. Census Bureau says 17% to 20% of all U.S. businesses used AI in their operations between December 2025 and May 2026. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says 58% of small businesses use generative AI. Both can be true, because they count different things, in different years, in different ways. Neither number tells you what to do on Monday.
Kevin D'Ambros-Smith is a business coach and advisor who has coached 200+ businesses one-on-one across 30+ industries since 2017, after a career at DDB, Ogilvy and Saatchi and Saatchi and founding nine companies. He works with US owners online. Every source below was opened on 2 November 2026, and anything we could not confirm was left out.
Last updated 2 November 2026. Market: United States.
The Census Bureau asks a standard question through its Business Trends and Outlook Survey: did the business use AI in producing goods or services in the last two weeks? Its May 2026 analysis covers 14 December 2025 to 3 May 2026 and finds overall use stayed between 17% and 20%. It also finds that less than 20% of firms with four or fewer employees reported using AI, and that use rose with size: 32% of firms with 100 to 249 employees and 37% of firms with 250 or more.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, published in August 2025, says 58% of small businesses use generative AI, up from 40% in 2024. The page we read does not state the sample size or the survey date, so treat it as a directional signal from a trade association, not a census. Never put the two figures side by side as if they measured the same thing.
The Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy counts 36,207,130 small businesses in the United States as of February 2026, employing 62.3 million people, or 45.9% of private-sector workers. The Census Bureau finds that fewer than one in five of the smallest firms, those with four or fewer employees, used AI in their operations. So the honest reading is that the smallest businesses are far from universal adopters, whatever the headline says. Whether you join them is a decision about where AI fits in your week, not a race.
That matters because being early does not help if you point AI at the wrong problem. A faster way to write emails does nothing for an owner whose real constraint is that not enough qualified leads enter the funnel.
Start with one number, then put AI behind it. In his Know Your Numbers training, Kevin shows a mountain bike park client that needed 730 season passes to hit its target. Three hundred of last year's 400 holders would renew, which left 430 to sell in 10 weeks: 43 a week, or 6 a day. As Kevin puts it, "Suddenly you can get on the phone and make six sales a day. Suddenly it's an achievable number."
The same logic works for AI. Pick the one daily action that moves your number, then ask what could take the grind out of it. For the owner who needs to contact five potential customers a day, that might mean an AI assistant that drafts the first version of each personal message from your notes, so that you spend your time on the conversation. You still check every message and you still send it yourself.
We have not quoted a time saving because we have no sourced figure for your business. Your two-week baseline is the only number that counts.
AI is the wrong first move when you do not yet know your constraint. If margin is thin, customers cannot say why you are different, or the offer is not clear, AI will help you do the wrong thing faster. In the same training Kevin says, "Revenue is flattery, margin is sanity." Check the margin and the funnel first, then decide whether AI belongs in the fix. That is the order Kevin follows with every owner he coaches: find the real constraint, fix it, and only then add tools.
The U.S. Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey found overall AI use stayed between 17% and 20% from December 2025 to May 2026. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported in August 2025 that 58% of small businesses use generative AI. The two measure different things and should not be compared directly.
The Census Bureau reports that less than 20% of firms with four or fewer employees used AI, and that use rises with firm size. The sources we read do not explain why, so we do not guess.
The one that sits behind the number you most need to move, such as follow-up on leads or the first draft of a customer message. Test one use case for two weeks and measure your own result.
No. AI can speed up tasks. It cannot tell you which constraint is holding the business back. A coach helps you choose the right problem first.
Yes. Kevin works with US owners online, and the free 30-minute call runs across US time zones.
Book a free 30-minute call with Kevin. It runs online and works across US time zones. You will leave with one number to aim at and one place to try AI first.
Simple-Growth publishes this guide. Census and Chamber figures are quoted from the pages linked above; the Know Your Numbers example is from Kevin's own training. This is general information, not financial or legal advice.
Kevin and The Simple-Growth Team
Sunday, October 04, 2026
AI is saving small business owners 10 to 13 hours a week, and most have no idea what they gained. Here is the four-question method for pointing AI at the hours that matter.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
You nailed the pitch and the buyer loved it, then the deal went quiet. The reason is usually a meeting room you were never invited to. Here is how to sell to a buying committee you cannot see.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Customers don't buy products, they hire them to do a job. Here is the framework that explains why an inferior competitor keeps outselling you, and what to fix in your marketing today.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most SME owners have one growth plan: get more customers. There are actually four distinct ways to grow, and the cheapest one is usually sitting in your existing customer file.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Small business confidence just rose, but growth expectations are falling for almost everyone. New 2026 data reveals the one decision separating owners still growing from owners just waiting it out.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
A 1 percent price increase lifts operating profit by an average of 11 percent, McKinsey's Global 1200 research found, far more than an equivalent rise in volume. Here's how to raise prices without losing your best customers.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Some coaches build a business out of being needed forever. Here's the Graduation Test: three questions that reveal whether your coach is transferring real capability, or just keeping you on retainer.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Most owners respond to a bottleneck by fixing something else entirely. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints explains why that backfires, and documented case studies show a mean 69 percent lead-time reduction once the real constraint is found.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Roughly four in ten B2B purchase attempts end in no decision at all. It's rarely about price. Here's Alex Hormozi's Value Equation, in plain English, and why it explains almost every stalled deal in your pipeline.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
41 percent of consumers now always read reviews before choosing a business, and 31 percent won't use one rated under 4.5 stars. Here's the Review Velocity System that turns happy customers into a steady stream of five-star proof.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
64 percent of executives say they're juggling too many conflicting priorities, and most SME strategies die from addition, not ambition. Here's the three-step Strategic Short List that turns six priorities into the one that actually moves the needle.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
A third of small business owners are absorbing this year's cost increases out of their own pocket instead of raising prices. Here's the three-step Margin Audit that turns that guess into a safe, thirty-day pricing test.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Before you approve the next hire, run the revenue-per-employee test. Some of the growth you are trying to buy with headcount is sitting in tasks AI can already take off the list.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Owner-dependent businesses sell for roughly half the multiple of businesses that run without them. Dan Sullivan's Who Not How question is the simplest fix most owners never try.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
The tasks only one person in your business can do are a hidden cost waiting to land. Here is how to clear the backlog in an afternoon using a recorder instead of a blank page.