Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon announced a $500 million commitment on Thursday to bring artificial intelligence training to small business owners, marking the launch of the bank’s new Small Business AI Institute.
The announcement, made alongside four technology partners — Anthropic, Google, Meta and OpenAI — will fund the next phase of Goldman’s 10,000 Small Businesses program. That program has graduated nearly 20,000 entrepreneurs since it began in 2010 as part of an earlier $1.25 billion pledge. The next phase will focus on education, access to capital and support services.
Solomon noted that small businesses make up 99 percent of U.S. businesses, calling them a “hugely important ecosystem.” The new institute is built around three pieces: training and learning programs run by each partner company, research into how small businesses are actually using AI, and expanded access to capital.
What Each Partner Is Doing
Anthropic will develop a learning series on applied AI for small businesses, hold hands-on workshops for program alumni, and study how small businesses use AI. Google will provide its Grow with Google AI Professional certificate to nearly 20,000 small-business owners and employees, along with three months of free access to Google AI Pro. Meta will offer AI tools and training through Muse for Small Business. OpenAI will run AI workshops through the program’s community college partners.
Solomon’s Advice: Don’t Rush
Solomon cautioned small-business owners against feeling pressure to adopt AI immediately. “At the moment, this is an expensive technology,” he said. “I don’t think that you have to look at the world and say, ‘I’ve got to be the best at this, I have to have this figured out in the next three weeks.'”
He framed AI adoption as a return-on-investment question in areas such as sales, customer experience, manufacturing and procurement. “If you think about token costs and you think about the cost of being on these platforms, the return can come from productivity,” he said.
“The important thing is to get it right, not to get it quicker.”
Solomon also distinguished between the cutting edge of AI research and what small businesses actually need day to day. “Frontier models and how frontier models develop is going to be a very, very interesting thing,” he said, adding that “the technology is moving very, very quickly, and the technology is going to continue to move quickly.” Even so, he said, “there’s very little that we do where we need frontier models,” and businesses should separate “bigger picture frontier issues that are getting a lot of attention” from “using the base tools that exist to support your businesses.”
He pointed to access to capital as a continuing obstacle for small business owners. On AI’s effect on jobs, he said the technology can let owners take on more work themselves rather than hire additional staff. “It’s not limiting the job, but it’s creating more leverage in the business without a fixed cost base,” he said.
