On Main Street, Goldman Sachs makes a big bet on AI

Artificial intelligence is already a huge business on Wall Street. But how is it being used by small businesses on Main Street?

Goldman Sachs is investing heavily to help more small businesses start using AI. On Thursday, the bank announced the launch of the Small Business AI Institute. The institute is part of a $500 million expansion of its 10,000 Small Businesses program, which teaches and supports business owners. Goldman said it would work with Google, Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta to give business owners AI training and tools.

“You’ve got to embrace new technology always, because if you’re not embracing it, trying to figure out how it can make your businesses better, there’s a real chance that you can fall behind,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in an exclusive interview for NBC News’ Business in America series.

This is an important time for the growth of AI and the companies and investors backing it, including Goldman Sachs. AI tools are widely available to the public, and building data centers is playing a growing role in U.S. economic growth.

“We believe AI will create the greatest boom in entrepreneurship and small businesses that the world has ever seen,” Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, said in an announcement from Goldman Sachs. “This is an incredible moment for anyone with an idea for a new endeavor because the gap between imagining it and bringing it to life is getting much smaller.”

But the growth of AI has also helped push prices higher for Americans who are already struggling with inflation. Anger about data centers is one of the few issues that voters from both major political parties agree on. The midterm elections are just days away.

In the financial world, critics say AI is part of an investment bubble that could burst, hurting companies and costing people their jobs. Signs of trouble are appearing in AI-related investments after large technology companies helped push the stock market to record highs.

Like many Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs is deeply involved in the AI boom.

The bank's share price has roughly tripled over the past three years as companies linked to AI helped push the stock market to record highs. Goldman helped lead the much-discussed, record-breaking first public stock offering for Elon Musk's SpaceX. The company has AI businesses including xAI and Grok. Goldman is also reportedly working on the planned stock market launch of Anthropic, the startup that makes the AI chatbot Claude.

“There is going to be a lot of financing to do,” Solomon said last week during a call about the bank's financial results, “and we’re going to be in the middle of that.”

Goldman and other large companies are counting on small businesses to start using AI. Small businesses make up more than 90% of all U.S. companies and create most of the country's job growth. But getting all these businesses to adopt AI will not be easy.

A recent NBC News poll found that 79% of people surveyed believe the government is not doing enough to control how AI is used. Sixty-seven percent disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling AI. Trump has said he supports having few government rules for AI.

Some small businesses that have already started using AI have also faced public criticism. For example, some restaurants have used AI-created pictures of food that critics have called “slop.”

Still, Goldman says small business owners are taking up AI quickly. A survey this year of more than 2,400 graduates of the bank's small business program found that 86% were using AI in their businesses. That was up from 56% in 2024.

Rechelle Balanzat, founder of the laundry service app Juliette and a graduate of the 10,000 Small Businesses program, told NBC News that AI can help her find more business even though she has limited resources.

“I really treat my AI as my consigliere,” Balanzat said, using a word for a trusted adviser. “They are not there to replace your accountant and lawyer. They are not there to replace humans. However, it does help prep me to have much more meaningful questions when I am meeting with my accountant and with my lawyer.”

Although many graduates of Goldman's program use AI, only 15% said they had made it a full part of their main business operations, according to Goldman.

Mike DiMarino, who runs Linda Tool in Brooklyn, New York, joined the first class of Goldman's program in 2010. His company makes precision machine parts for the military and aerospace industries. DiMarino believes AI could help the company with planning, management and work processes.

“I’m sure there’s a lot more it can do that I don’t know yet,” he said.

But DiMarino is also careful about how Linda Tool uses AI, especially because the company works with a lot of sensitive information in the defense, aerospace and manufacturing industries.

His concerns are part of wider fears about the safety of AI and computer systems. In July, a group of about 700 AI agents created by OpenAI hacked into Hugging Face, a platform that hosts open-source AI tools and other software. Last month, Google said Chinese hackers were using AI to carry out attacks automatically.

Along with worries about security, business leaders are increasingly concerned about the cost of AI and whether it is bringing clear financial benefits. Spending on AI tokens, the units used to process information in AI systems, rose sharply over the past year. In response, companies including Uber, Microsoft and Meta have taken steps to limit or rethink how their employees use AI computing power.

Americans are also worried about how AI might affect jobs. A recent Gallup poll found that more workers are afraid technology will make their jobs unnecessary. Small businesses have fewer employees than large companies, so their workers could be especially at risk if jobs are lost.

Balanzat and DiMarino told NBC News that they want AI to help their employees, not take their jobs.

“Machines are expensive,” DiMarino said. “People are priceless.”