AI isn’t just meant for coders and other white-collar workers—even small business owners with physical operations could benefit from the new technology.
In a recent interview, legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen offered surprisingly practical advice on how even the smallest brick-and-mortar businesses can harness artificial intelligence today. When asked how a friend who owns a single bakery could use AI, Andreessen didn’t pivot to grand visions of automation or robot bakers. Instead, he outlined immediate, accessible applications that any small business owner could implement tomorrow—starting with something as simple as asking AI to review their staffing schedule or analyze customer emails.
Starting Small: AI as Your Business Consultant
Andreessen’s first suggestion is refreshingly straightforward. “First thing you can do is just say, look, review, do a performance review for me,” he explained. “Feed in here’s my staffing schedule. What do you think of it? Give me a critique of it.”
The applications expand from there. “Here’s the last hundred emails we’ve gotten from customers. What are the patterns of that?” he suggested. “Here’s the copy for the ad that we’re going to place in the local newspaper, put up on Facebook or whatever. What do you think of this? Let it do a performance assessment.”
Beyond operational feedback, Andreessen noted that many people find AI effective for personal coaching. “The owner might use it that way or might ask the employees to use it that way,” he said.
Scaling Up: AI as Your Growth Partner
Where Andreessen sees the real power emerging is in expansion planning. “You’re a small business owner, you’ve got one bakery. Now you want to have two bakeries, right? And you want to have a brand, and then maybe if that works, you’re going to have five and then 50, and then 500. And then you’re going to have packaged products going into supermarkets and so forth. And then there you basically turn the AI into a business partner.”
The reasoning behind this capability is what makes modern AI particularly suited for business strategy. “The AI has been trained on some large percentage of the total amount of human knowledge,” Andreessen explained. “It has all the information on how Ray Kroc turned McDonald’s from a single restaurant into McDonald’s and how all these other entrepreneurs before actually did this. And so it can explain with you and help you figure out how to do this for your own business.”
The Always-Available Advisor
Perhaps most compellingly, Andreessen described AI as “like having the world’s best coach, mentor, therapist, advisor, board member—but it’s infinitely patient. It’s happy to have the conversation. It’s happy to have the conversation 50 times. It’s happy if you admit your insecurities, it’ll coach you through them. It’s happy if you run wild speculations that don’t make any sense. It’s happy to do all that at four in the morning.”
According to Andreessen, people who use AI extensively are finding “it actually turns out to be very supportive in their realizing” their ambitions.
The Democratization of Business Intelligence
Andreessen’s vision reflects a broader trend in how AI is reshaping access to business expertise. Historically, sophisticated strategic advice, market analysis, and operational consulting were luxuries available primarily to well-funded enterprises that could afford McKinsey consultants or experienced board members. Small business owners made do with their own experience, advice from peers, or whatever guidance they could glean from books and seminars.
Today’s AI tools are changing that equation. A bakery owner in a small town now has access to insights drawn from thousands of successful business expansions, marketing campaigns, and operational optimizations. They can test ideas, refine messaging, and stress-test strategies without the financial risk of hiring expensive consultants or the time investment of trial-and-error learning.
This democratization is already playing out across industries. Small retail shops are using AI to optimize inventory based on weather patterns and local events. Independent restaurants are leveraging AI for menu engineering and pricing strategies. Solo consultants are using AI assistants to handle client communications and proposal writing, allowing them to compete with larger firms.
The implications extend beyond individual business success. If AI can genuinely help more small businesses survive and scale, it could reshape local economies, create jobs, and challenge the dominance of large chains that have historically had advantages in data analysis and strategic planning. Andreessen’s bakery example may be hypothetical, but the transformation he describes is already underway—one small business at a time.