AI Agents Are Moving into the Small Business Mainstream

By SBE Council at 30 September, 2026, 4:51 pm

By Karen Kerrigan –

Artificial intelligence is entering another important phase for small businesses. Over the past several years, entrepreneurs have rapidly embraced generative AI to write content, conduct research, create images, analyze data, improve customer service and perform dozens of other tasks. Now, AI is moving from simply helping business owners do the work to actually getting work done on their behalf.

Welcome to the age of the AI agent.

Traditional generative AI generally responds to a prompt and produces something: an answer, an image, an analysis, a marketing plan, or a piece of content. AI agents can go further. An entrepreneur or member of their team can give an agent a goal, authorize it to work across connected applications and data, and have it carry out multiple steps required to accomplish that goal.

For a time-constrained entrepreneur, that is a potentially powerful leap forward. And guess what? Small business owners are already moving in this direction.

SBE Council Survey: Small Businesses Are Embracing AI Agents

SBE Council’s forthcoming “Small Business Check Up Survey,” to be released next week, finds that 58% of small employers are already using AI agents regularly or occasionally. Another 14% are considering or planning to use them.

That means 72% of small employers are either currently using AI agents or considering their use in the near future.

Those findings are not surprising to SBE Council. Our earlier survey research has consistently found that entrepreneurs are enthusiastic AI adopters because the various tools save time, lowers costs, and gives smaller firms access to sophisticated capabilities.

Our 2026 Small Business Technology Use Survey found that 82% of small business employers have adopted AI tools, with the typical business using five. Two-thirds of users reported revenue gains tied to AI, while 93% planned to continue investing in AI tools over the coming year.

AI is changing the economics of scale for small businesses. Historically, growing firms eventually had to build departments or hire outside specialists around functions such as marketing, finance, customer service, HR, research and operations. AI tools, and increasingly AI agents, allow entrepreneurs to add pieces of that expertise and execution capacity much earlier and at far lower cost.

That does not eliminate the need for people. It gives small teams extraordinary new leverage, allowing them to focus on higher value work and operate with capabilities once associated with much larger businesses. AI agents are a logical next step.

Not Just Automation

The opportunity for small businesses is not simply automating another task to operate more efficiently and productively. It also means expanding the capacity of the business. That is, the opportunity to scale faster, and with far less capital.

An AI agent can perform pieces of various operational functions such as analyzing sales and marketing results and then developing a growth plan; review advertising performance and help prepare the next campaign; identify customer concerns and questions that need attention; organize information scattered across different applications; review financial performance and flag unusual expenses; or keep track of emails, calendars and projects that require follow-up.

Agents can help to connect information and data across different parts of a business. This addresses a key challenge that business owners often lament about: their data and digital tools can be fragmented across different applications, and is often difficult to organize, analyze, and then put the data to practical use. AI agents can help bring those pieces together and turn data and information into action.

Meta’s Muse Puts an Agent to Work for Small Business

A timely example is Meta’s newly launched Muse for Small Business.

Meta first introduced Muse in early September as a personal AI agent that can continue working on tasks after a conversation ends. The company has now expanded Muse with skills and connectors specifically aimed at helping entrepreneurs run their businesses – Muse for Small Business.

A business owner can give Muse a goal – such as finding new customers, figuring out what is working in the business or developing a growth plan – and allow it to work across connected business tools. The type of integrations makes it appealing for small businesses. Muse can connect with tools they may already use such as Intuit QuickBooks, Shopify, Stripe, Canva, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, Box, Notion, Klaviyo, Zoom and others, as well as Facebook Pages, Instagram professional accounts and Meta ad accounts. (Meta says additional connectors are coming.)

A business owner could ask Muse to analyze sales, campaigns and social media performance and develop a growth plan. Or the agent could examine advertising and content performance, determine what is working, research trends and draft a campaign. It can also analyze monthly financial performance and identify expenses that may need attention.

For small businesses already operating across multiple digital platforms, the connectivity offered by Muse is significant.

Why the Facebook and Instagram Connections Matter

As revealed by various SBE Council surveys over the past five years or more, small businesses already derive significant value from Meta’s platforms. Our March 2026 survey found that Facebook ranked first among social media and technology platforms used by small businesses (62%) to generate revenue and for building their brands. Instagram followed at 43%.

SBE Council’s previous technology research similarly found that social media marketing generates some of the highest advertising ROI for small firms, with Facebook and Instagram consistently ranking as the two most important platforms for branding and income generation.

That means that many small business owners do not have to abandon existing business practices and start from scratch. They can work with Facebook and Instagram business accounts and advertising data, along with other tools the business may already use.

The Small Business Owner Remains in Charge

As agents become more capable, control, security and good business judgment become even more important. Small business owners should understand what information an agent can access, carefully manage permissions and connections, review important outputs, and maintain human oversight over consequential decisions.

Muse incorporates an important control feature along those lines. According to Meta, nothing publishes, sends or spends without the owner’s approval. That “human-in-the-loop” principle is especially important as agents become more deeply connected to business operations.

From AI Assistant to AI Teammate

For small business owners, the rapid development of agents could mean the technology moves into a role more akin to a fixed digital teammate. The market is moving quickly. Meta’s Muse is part of a broader wave of agent development across the technology industry, with companies racing to build agents capable of carrying out increasingly sophisticated, multi-step work.

Small business owners appear ready for this next stage. Previous SBE Council surveys and our forthcoming one show that entrepreneurs are not sitting on the sidelines when a new technology hits the market. For resource-constrained small businesses that are short on time, staff, capital and specialized expertise, AI agents offer something especially valuable: more capacity to focus on customers, innovation and growth.

Karen Kerrigan is President & CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.