Small business takeaway:
- Big brands’ actionable AI playbooks favor focus over frenzied adoption. Wayfair leverages AI to cut friction in consumer product discovery via conversational and visual search tools. LinkedIn frames AI as a solopreneur’s teammate, offloading sales and marketing chores. YouTube applies AI to align businesses’ ad formats with strategic objectives and budgets. And Google says SMBs should start small: Improve your online product listings and descriptions to boost visibility and conversions.
The country’s biggest brands are racing to introduce new artificial intelligence tools every week and using them to drive growth.
The rapid pace of change and wide range of AI options can be overwhelming for small businesses.
Rather than trying to learn everything about AI at once, small businesses should step back, determine their goals, and focus on how AI innovations align with them, according to executives from AI-forward brands interviewed by CO—.
Here are four key (and adaptable) lessons those brands learned during their AI journeys.
Wayfair: Leverage AI to better deliver on your core mission
Online home goods retailer Wayfair was using early versions of AI tools well before the technology became a business buzzword with the release of ChatGPT in 2022.
As a digitally native e-commerce company, Wayfair was using machine learning and AI from the beginning, primarily for customer acquisition and marketing, Fiona Tan, Chief Technology Officer, told CO— in an interview.
Wayfair also used early versions of AI image and text cataloging tools to make it easier for consumers to search its vast online inventory.
As tech companies like OpenAI and Google have released more advanced tools, Wayfair is leveraging those upgrades to advance its core goal – delivering the best customer search for home furnishings.
Customers now can engage in complex conversational searches; ask to see examples of rooms decorated in dreamy French country, coastal vibe, or myriad other styles; or upload an image and see examples of similar products.
“We now have the world’s smartest companies putting all their energies into building these amazing models that we get to leverage,” Tan said, while keeping Wayfair’s focus on its founding mission to “help our customers discover and buy things for their home.”
LinkedIn: Think of AI as a solopreneur’s best friend
When networking site LinkedIn was building an improved membership platform for small businesses, it started by asking small businesses what they needed. The response was nearly unanimous: Keep it simple.
“If you talk to a small business owner, they can probably rattle off five to 10 tools, etc., that they have to use on a daily basis,” Judy Nam, Vice President of Small Business Marketing, said, “That takes time away from finding clients, and servicing their clients.”
Consumers are interacting with up to 130 mobile touchpoints a day, Babcock said. With so much competition for consumer attention, brands have to figure out, ‘How do we introduce our message in a way that’s going to land?’ he said.
LinkedIn created its Premium All-in-One membership platform with those business owners in mind, Nam told CO—. It also was responding to the surge in what “solopreneurs” often must handle themselves as the sole employee.
AI is a big reason behind the solopreneur surge, she said.
“AI is lowering the barrier to entry,” Nam said. “Companies are feeling like they can punch above their weight class because they now have the power of AI.”
Nam advises solopreneurs and small businesses to think of AI as a means to offload some of the many hats a solopreneur wears. AI tools can serve as their head of sales, their head of marketing, or any of the other roles they are juggling alone.
AI, Nam said, can be “a great fit for those smaller-size companies that are trying to reduce and streamline and simplify.”
YouTube: Use AI to make your advertising match your objectives
While brands like Wayfair talk about using AI to help customers discover the right products, YouTube is leveraging AI to help brands find the right customers.
Kevin Babcock, who leads the YouTube Creative Works team as Head of U.S. Creative Partnerships for Google, YouTube’s parent company, told CO— that AI advancements allow brands to target the customers they want to reach.
Consumers are interacting with up to 130 mobile touchpoints a day, Babcock said. With so much competition for consumer attention, brands have to figure out, ‘How do we introduce our message in a way that’s going to land?’ he said.
YouTube uses AI-powered tools that help businesses plan ad campaigns based on their objectives – whether those aims are to reach a wide audience with maximum impressions or to target consumers who are most likely to buy.
“The AI is going to be smart enough to figure out if I want to serve a six-second ad here and a 30-second over here. It’s going to do the hard work” for brands, he said.
For small businesses, using AI-powered advertising formats makes it easier to “think about your budget and your objectives and then lean into the products that matter for you,” Babcock said.
Google: AI may seem overwhelming, but there are steps even the smallest retailers can take today to reap rewards
Part of Courtney Rose’s job as Vice President, Retail, at Google, involves explaining to brands and retailers of all sizes how they can benefit from Google’s newest AI innovations.
The pace of innovation is so rapid, Rose said, that it’s natural for small business owners to feel a bit overwhelmed.
The good news, she told CO—, is that they don’t have to figure it all out at once. “You can take a breath and know that you’re not necessarily missing out on something today if you’re not implementing all this,” she said.
A first and easy step small businesses can take immediately is to update their information on Google Merchant Center, where companies manage their listings on the site, to take advantage of new AI-enabled data fields that allow for more detailed product descriptions that can drive sales.
Updating your product information “is going to make you more discoverable and hopefully drive more purchases and conversions for your product,” she said.
[Read more: Google's Newest AI Commerce Tools Hold Promise for Driving Small Business Growth]
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
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