OpenAI and America’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) network have launched a pilot aimed at accelerating small business AI adoption by training local advisors and delivering hands-on workshops that help owners test and implement ChatGPT and related tools in real operations.
The initiative centers on OpenAI Academy’s Community Trainer Program and a facilitator pathway that together will credential roughly 150 SBDC advisors and bring Academy-style, in-person workshops to participating SBDC networks across the United States. OpenAI and America’s SBDC expect the pilot to reach at least 1,000 small businesses through direct training, with additional impact through follow-up advising and shared materials developed during the program.
Training for advisors will include a credentialing pathway focused on helping owners identify practical entry points for AI, apply tools responsibly, and evaluate whether those tools deliver measurable business value. A separate facilitator pathway will prepare SBDC staff to run the Academy’s three-hour hands-on workshop format so business owners can build and test ChatGPT on real tasks and leave with an actionable plan.
Alongside workshops, the partners will produce practical guides tailored to common business needs and specific industries. OpenAI cited potential guide topics including marketing, operations, manufacturing, exporting and government contracting. The materials will be iteratively refined based on observations and feedback from advisors during workshops and advising sessions.
OpenAI published a companion report, Small Businesses, Bigger Capabilities, to contextualize the pilot and show how small firms already use its products. The report found that in a recent week in September about 4 million employees at firms with fewer than 500 people used OpenAI products. Nearly one in five of those users worked at businesses with fewer than ten employees, underscoring the depth of AI use even within very small teams.
The report also documents a notable rise in agentic activity: in August, agentic output tokens for products such as ChatGPT Work and Codex accounted for two-thirds of small-business output tokens, up from one-third in April 2026. That shift suggests small firms are increasingly relying on more autonomous, agent-driven outputs for day-to-day workflows.
OpenAI’s analysis highlights where small teams are turning to AI most intensively: finance and accounting, supply chain, legal and compliance, and marketing. Each of these areas accounted for at least three times the share of small-business AI interactions compared with larger businesses, indicating focused, practical use cases that can yield outsized benefits for companies with limited staff.
The report pairs aggregated usage data with owner accounts to illustrate concrete impacts. For example, restaurateurs Ted and Tami Taylor used ChatGPT Work to compare competitors’ menu prices, enabling a pricing decision they might otherwise have postponed. Another owner, Teri Moten, used ChatGPT Work to research school districts and prepare tailored outreach that led to a paid engagement within ten days. These examples show how small business AI can support rapid, revenue-oriented decisions and outreach.
OpenAI and America’s SBDC frame the pilot as a way to combine AI capabilities with trusted local advisory relationships. For many small businesses that operate with constrained staffing, the partnership aims to lower the barrier to experimentation, help owners identify high-impact tasks for automation or augmentation, and provide ongoing support to assess effectiveness.
The pilot builds on previous OpenAI Academy activities with local business organizations. OpenAI previously ran Small Business AI Jams with partners including DoorDash and SCORE, and launched a ChatGPT for small business program in July 2026 that provided training and resources for owners. Throughout the SBDC pilot, OpenAI said it will follow up with participating owners to learn what types of support prove most useful and to adapt training and materials accordingly.
By credentialing local advisors and equipping them to run hands-on sessions, the partners aim to scale practical adoption without replacing the personalized guidance that small-business owners rely on. OpenAI and America’s SBDC plan to publish practical guides informed by the pilot and to make additional resources available through OpenAI’s small business pages and the Small Businesses, Bigger Capabilities report.
If the pilot meets its initial goals, the credentialed advisors and facilitator-trained staff could expand routine access to proven workflows and tools for owners across participating SBDC networks. For small firms seeking to test AI on concrete business tasks, the collaboration is positioned as a pragmatic step toward broader, locally supported adoption of small business AI.
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