Business
AI adoption surges among small businesses, 40% plan to add new jobs

Goldman Sachs global head of corporate engagement Asahi Pompey unpacks AI ambitions across America on ‘The Claman Countdown.’
Small business owners are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence to power their growth, with many saying it will lead to more job opportunities this year, according to a Goldman Sachs survey.
About 68% of small business owners say they are already using AI, with another 9% planning to begin using it within the next year, according to new data from Goldman’s 10,000 Small Businesses Voices survey.
It’s a significant jump from the 51% of small business owners who were using the technology to increase productivity and expand their capabilities two years ago.
Most small businesses using AI, about 80%, said it is enhancing rather than replacing their workforce. About 74% of small business owners using AI plan to grow their business in 2025. That compares to 65% of those not using AI or unsure about adoption. Nearly 40% of small businesses using the technology say it will allow them to create new jobs in 2025.
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This comes as public anxiety grows over whether AI will replace jobs. According to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey, more than 60% of Americans believe AI will result in fewer jobs over the next 20 years.
However, about 80% of the small businesses that have already adopted the technology say it increased the efficiency and productivity of the company. Over 50% say they have been given better data for decision-making, with another 49% saying it helped offer new capabilities, according to the survey.
The OpenAI logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Still, despite the rapid adoption, about 42% of small businesses say they still don’t have access to the resources and expertise necessary to successfully deploy it. Of those businesses, 60% cite a lack of expertise in applying AI to their business. However, 42% say it’s not relevant to their business model, highlighting an information and resource gap.
Those who have adopted technology for their business have still confronted challenges, with 48% saying they are struggling to choose the right tools, 46% express concerns about data privacy and security, and 41% cite a lack of technical expertise.
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Workday posted a blog earlier this year, highlighting how AI is becoming the standard for modern small businesses, and that AI is critical to helping small businesses create efficient workforce management to stay productive without overburdening staff.

AI assistant apps on a smartphone – OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning once seemed like a luxury for large enterprises—but today, they’re becoming the competitive standard for businesses of every size and industry,” Workday said in an April blog.
For small businesses in particular, “artificial intelligence is leveling the playing field with larger organizations, offering new levels of scalability and productivity that may have once felt unattainable,” Workday added.
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Still, accounting giant E&Y said this transformation will bring about massive structural change and disruption to existing business and operating models, emphasizing the importance of regulation.

The xAI and Grok logos are seen in this illustration photo. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The company said that a successful organization will have robust risk assessment and validation processes; clear frameworks for human oversight of AI systems; strong stakeholder communication and trust-building capabilities; flexible operational models that can adapt to evolving AI regulations; balanced automation strategies that prioritize reliability over speed; and a comprehensive understanding of their internal and external value chains, along with the AI systems driving them.
Business
CEO of Amazon-Backed AI Company Predicts “End of Human Creativity” in a Dystopian Future to Rival Any Movie

The death of human creativity is coming, and it is coming from the ever-present threat of AI. At least, that seems to be the opinion of the CEO of Amazon-backed AI company Fable, who are behind the restoration of missing footage from the 1942 Orson Welles movie, The Magnificent Ambersons.
Edward Saatchi made an appearance on Squawk Box on CNBC last week, an interview that helped promote his company’s involvement in completing an 80-year-old movie that has been missing a large section of its story for many years. While this is a wonderful thing, and in many ways simply the next stage in the evolution of movie restoration, Saatchi seems happy to believe that AI will go well beyond just helping to revive lost and damaged movies of the past and will instead become as much of a creative force as humans. He said:
“What’s coming is a world where we’re not the only creative species, and that we will enjoy entertainment created by AIs. So, we wanted to train our AI on the greatest storyteller of the past 200 years, Orson Welles.”
Saatchi went on to envision a world where “a movie would come out on a Friday, with [an AI model] alongside it, day-and-date.” This, he enthused, would allow fans to generate additional content based on the movie, and by the end of opening weekend “there are millions of new scenes.” Yes, because that sounds like exactly what the world needs.
According to the CEO, who is not exactly likely to dumb down the purpose of his company, the idea of making “enormous amounts of money” from AI is something that studios and stakeholders are “starting to come around to” after rejecting it as little as a year ago. In his excitement for all of this money-making, potentially at the expense of actual human interaction with the creative process, Saatchi declared that the whole belief in computers being capable of generating original work would be “something Warhol would have found very exciting, DaVinci. The idea that AI can be creative and that you can create a work of art that creates more works of art is really exciting.”
AI Is Back at the Hearts of Several Lawsuits
Although Fable CEO Edward Saatchi is ready to revolutionize the world with AI, seemingly whatever the cost, the idea of anyone being able to create additional scenes for a movie is filled with so many potential pitfalls that it is impossible to comprehend the issues that could come about with such a thing becoming reality. Currently, AI is already caught up in several lawsuits linked to copyright infringement.
Anthropic AI, a company that specializes in generative AI, recently agreed to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit with a group of authors to the tune of $1.5 billion. In the last few days, Warner Bros. has joined Disney and Universal in filing a case against Midjourney, claiming the company has recently eliminated “guardrails” that previously prevented the platform from generating videos and images that use trademarked and copyrighted characters including Superman, Tom & Jerry, and several Looney Tunes characters. Today, Apple has found itself caught in the same web, with the tech giant being accused of using pirated versions of copyrighted novels and books to train its LLM, OpenELM.
Despite all these lawsuits, along with the scrutiny on AI content use in Hollywood from unions, it seems that those heading up AI companies only have their eyes on one thing, and it isn’t how their technology will impact the people currently making a living in the creative side of filmmaking and writing. For regular people, sitting in their bedrooms with no money and without the talent to render their ideas themselves, AI can hand them the world, but for studios, it can only hand them a way of cutting costs and increasing profits.
Business
Shadow AI enters workforce, employees embrace AI adoption: IBM

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have made their way into corporate environments as employees report using tools for work without formal approval from IT departments.
IBM says the growing reliance on personal AI tools in the workplace introduces serious risks to Canadian businesses, from potential data leaks and compliance issues to losing control of sensitive business information. Shadow AI, the use of software without oversight, costs nearly $308,000 per data breach, according to the company.
“It’s only growing until we actually are able to lock down the use of shadow AI, enable our employees and enable our organizations, but through sanctioned, governed, secured AI,” Daina Proctor, Canadian security services leader for IBM Canada, told BNNBloomberg.ca in a Friday interview.
A shadow AI survey from IBM found that while 79 per cent of full-time office workers said they use AI at work, 25 per cent rely on enterprise grade AI tools. The rest rely on a mix of personal and employer tools (33 per cent) or entirely on personal apps (21 per cent).
IBM said while AI tools offer organizations the opportunity to significantly improve productivity, the technology presents new challenges such as security threats. Despite the risk, the survey found AI adoption in the workplace is being led by employees.
“AI adoption in the workplace is no longer theoretical, it’s happening, and it’s being led by employees,” said Deb Pimentel, president of IBM Canada, in a news release. “To securely and efficiently harness the value of AI for smarter business operations, leaders should prioritize secure solutions, align AI with tangible business objectives, and foster a data-driven culture.”
Canadian workers overwhelmingly reported viewing AI as a tool that makes them better at their jobs as 97 per cent said they agree AI improves their productivity at work, 86 per cent felt confident using AI, and nearly 80 per cent said AI allows them to spend more time on the strategic or creative aspects of their roles.
“As humans, we’re going to find things to help ourselves to evolve ourselves to get more efficient, to get more creative to get more productive,” said Proctor. “As the saying goes, ‘water will flow downhill.’”
Surveyors found Canadian workers believe AI allows them to save time. More than half (55 per cent) said AI saves them between one and three hours per weeks and 26 per cent reported saving up to six hours. About 61 per cent of employees surveyed said AI allows them to complete a task faster, 43 per cent said AI enables more efficient workload management, 40 per cent said AI allows improved accuracy and 39 per cent said AI enables increased creativity.
While employees report using AI, highlighting benefits, only a small handful of surveyed employees (29 per cent) believe their employer is using AI to its full potential. Nearly half of workers (46 per cent) said they would leave their current job for one that uses AI more effectively.
Proctor said she wants companies to invest in AI so that employees don’t have to use personal devices.
“Organizations need to provide secured enterprise grade AI tools, or else we as individuals, we as employees, are going to find the AI tools that maybe our organizations don’t really want us to, so we need to close that gap,” said Proctor.
She said businesses are openly leaning into AI in a proactive, collaborative approach tailoring programs to ensure that their confidentiality, regulatory and conduct requirements are met to bridge the gap of what they need and what employees expect.
Methodology
The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 4,000 full-time office workers who are not sole proprietors and are familiar with AI tools in the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. The data was collected between May 23 to May 30, 2025.
Business
Funding extension for school holiday club programme in Cornwall

A programme providing school holiday clubs for thousands of children in Cornwall has been extended.
The Time2Move holiday programme supports families with activities and healthy food for children aged between five and 16, and is fully funded for those eligible for benefits-related free school meals, the government has confirmed.
The government announced a three-year extension for the scheme, as part of a £600m investment nationally.
The programme is run by Active Cornwall, which brings together providers across the county, and said £8m had been invested in it since 2021.
Tim Marrion, partnership manager at Active Cornwall said: “We know that school holidays can bring particular challenges for families on lower incomes and children can face triple inequalities of social isolation, poor diet and low levels of physical activity over the holiday periods.
“Through our Time2Move programme we make a real difference for over 12,000 children and their families each year, so this funding extension is very welcome news”.
The programme is fully-funded by the Department for Education and is known nationally as the Holiday Activities and Food Programme.
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