Meta Aims to Share AI Intelligence With Small Business Users

Meta is reportedly launching a program to support artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among small businesses.

Meta Small Business is aimed at the more than 250 million small businesses around the world that use the company’s social media programs, Axios reported Wednesday (March 25), citing an internal memo from CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We want to build the services that enable this. This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by superintelligence.”

He added that small businesses have always been a majority of the company’s business model, with tens of millions of entrepreneurs connecting with customers each day on its platforms.

According to Axios, the program will be headed by three top executives, including Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick and Naomi Gleit, head of product.

PYMNTS has written about how AI is allowing small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to enjoy some of the same advantages as their larger counterparts.

“The unlock is going to be tremendous. AI is going to enable people to explore dreams and passions they never thought of before. … I think it’s a huge, huge equalizer,”  René Lacerte, CEO and founder of BILL, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster during a conversation last year. “We’ll [soon] be talking about the Fortune 500 wanting the agility of the Fortune 5 million.”

More recently, PYMNTS has examined the need for SMBs to embrace newer technologies, as some of these businesses find themselves held back by legacy processes.

For example, the PYMNTS Intelligence/Mastercard report “Ready for Change: Why Nearly Half of SMBs Want to Ditch Cash and Checks,” found that 52% of the payments that Gen Z-owned SMBs make are in cash, in spite of the prevalence of digital tools.

“Individually, these legacy frictions may seem trivial. Collectively, they create a hierarchy of convenience,” PYMNTS wrote.

Much like consumers paying bills, accounts payable departments often prioritize the transactions that are easiest to complete. A vendor that offers a one-click payment link or a pre-populated payment form can often move ahead of those that require manual processing. That means the ease of completing the payment has become part of the product.

“Gone are the days where you can have a great product and a great service, and your invoices aren’t any good,” North Vice President of Product Management Greg Gorman told PYMNTS in a recent interview.