Contributed by SBOC Member:
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
$650 billion will be invested in AI this year — more than a billion dollars every single day — and nobody can predict what comes next. Welcome to the Jump Ball Economy. The smartest, wealthiest people in the world are making enormous bets on a future none of them can define. Not Elon Musk. Not Mark Zuckerberg. Not Nvidia. Nobody.
A phrase landed on my desk recently that I haven’t been able to shake: the entire market is a jump ball for the next 12 to 24 months. Whoever moves fastest can control possession for a few fleeting moments, but overall, we’re headed nowhere quickly.
The Jump Ball Economy. That’s where we are.
For small business owners, this is either terrifying or thrilling. And the difference between those two reactions might determine who makes it through the next 12 months.
Your business will not look the same at the end of 2026. That’s not a prediction — it’s a guarantee. The software you use, the habits you have, the hours you work, the deliverables you give clients, your pricing — all of it is going to change.
How do I know? Look back at how you operated before ChatGPT showed up. Different, right? The next 12 months will be that level of disruption, on steroids.
The question isn’t whether things will change. It’s whether you’ll be the one choosing how they change or the one getting dragged along.
Jeff Bezos taught us: don’t obsess over what’s changing. Invest in what’s NOT going to change. For Amazon, that’s low prices, fast delivery, and massive selection. For your business: trust, results, and human connection. No AI replaces those. Build there.
Retain as much fiscal flexibility as you can. We don’t know which product lines will be obsolete in 90 days if the right AI tool launches. You need room to pivot, and debt eliminates that room.
Naval said it in a viral interview: “To invest in the future, you need to live in the future.” That means getting your hands on AI tools today. Play with them. Break them. Build something, even if it’s imperfect.
On today’s show, I demonstrated how I built working software using Claude in under an hour. From customer need to deployment. Is it as polished as a professional dev team? No. But it’s not a thousand dollars worse, and it’s not three weeks late. That speed and accessibility is unprecedented.
If someone in your circle is saying “AI can’t do it as well as I can” or “My customers only want human interaction,” run. Not walk — run. Those are the people who will be left behind, and their negativity will slow you down.
Get around people who are curious, experimenting, and building. As Jamar Jones says: change your circle, change your life.
The Jump Ball Economy is unsettling. But it’s also the greatest opportunity small business owners have had in a generation. The playing field is being reset. The big companies are confused too. And the tools that used to cost millions are now available for $20 a month.
David has never had a better sling against Goliath.
The question is whether you’ll pick it up.
From Businessing with Pat Miller — a daily live show for small business owners. Mon–Thu at 11am CT. Join the conversation at smallbusinesscommunity.com.
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.