Navigating The Impact of AI on Small Businesses
Contributed by SBOC Member:
Pat Miller
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
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What a Viral AI Warning Means for Small Business
An AI executive posted an article on X this week. As of this morning, it’s been viewed 31 million times.
The headline that everyone’s talking about: “If you work on a screen, you are at risk.”
Matt Schirmer is an investor and founder in AI. He’s not some random doomsayer – he’s an insider sharing what the industry is actually seeing.
And what he’s seeing should get your attention.
What's Actually Happening?
According to Schirmer, the latest AI models – GPT 5.3 and Claude Opus 4.6 – have crossed a major threshold.
Until recently, AI outputs were technically correct but needed human polish. You’d get something that was “close” and then you’d fix it up.
That’s changing.
These new models are developing something that feels like taste and judgment. They’re not just giving correct answers – they’re giving good ones. The gap between AI output and human output is shrinking fast.
Here’s the part that stopped me: Anthropic, the company behind Claude, predicts that 50% of entry-level white collar jobs will be gone within one to five years.
One to five years. Not decades. Not “sometime in the future.” The impact of AI is closing in on us in the coming YEARS.
The Gap Nobody Is Talking About
One of Schirmer’s most interesting points: the free version of AI is roughly a year behind the paid version in terms of power and capability.
So if you’re using free ChatGPT or free Claude and thinking “this is pretty good but not world-changing” – you’re not seeing what’s actually possible.
The gap between public perception and insider reality is getting dangerous.
People are making career decisions and business decisions based on AI capabilities that are already a year out of date.
Do You Push Pixels?
Here’s the question Schirmer is essentially asking:
Is a screen important to what you do? Do you produce your value by pushing bits and bytes around for people?
I don’t care what version of it is. Bookkeeper. Lawyer. Graphic designer. Marketing manager. Content writer. Analyst.
If your job involves working on a screen, you need to pay attention.
What To Do About AI
Schirmer’s recommendations are straightforward:
First, pay for the $20/month plan on Claude or ChatGPT. Stop using the free version. You need to experience what the best models can actually do, not what they could do a year ago.
Second, don’t use AI like Google. Stop just asking questions and copying answers. Push it to do your actual work. Give it real tasks. Ask it to do hard things – things you’re not even sure it can accomplish.
Third, be the person who figures this out first. The competitive window won’t stay open long. There’s an advantage right now to being early. That advantage is shrinking by the day.
What This Means For Small Business
For small business owners, I see two paths:
Path one: Use AI to move faster than you ever could before. Automate the repetitive stuff. Let agents handle the busy work. Focus your human energy on what humans do best – empathy, relationships, real-time problem solving, in-person service.
Path two: Ignore this and get passed by competitors who don’t.
The businesses that figure out how to blend human touch with AI capability are going to win. The businesses that try to compete on screen-based work alone are in trouble.
The Question To Ask Yourself
What can you still do for people that a screen can’t?
How can you serve people in person? How can you offer a higher touch, a more human experience? Where’s the empathy in your business model?
These are the questions we need to be asking. Because the AI isn’t slowing down.
And if you work on a screen, you’re at risk.
Listen to the full discussion on Businessing with Pat Miller.
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Contributed by
Pat Miller
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
Pat spent two decades in broadcasting management and hosting. After leaving the radio industry, he spent time consulting small businesses and realized the support system for entrepreneurs was broken. Where could you find help for improving small businesses and building real connections with other like-minded people. In June of 2020, the Idea Collective Small Business Community was born.