Introducing the ChatGPT for small business program
Quick Answer
OpenAI launches the ChatGPT for small businesses program, featuring hands-on training, in-person AI academies, and ChatGPT Work powered by GPT-5.6, enabling small businesses to enhance productivity and streamline operations.
Quick Take
Participants in past events reported saving over five hours weekly and building functional AI workflows in a day.
Key Points
- Hands-on training includes product-specific webinars and demos for small business use cases.
- In-person AI academies have helped 78% of participants build functional AI workflows in a day.
- New guides and interactive content are available to help businesses start using ChatGPT Work quickly.
- ChatGPT Work can automate tasks, improving productivity and efficiency for small business owners.
- The program features integrations with popular tools like Dropbox, Shopify, and Slack.
DeepSignal Analysis
What happened
OpenAI has launched the ChatGPT for small businesses program, which includes virtual training, in-person AI academies, and the ChatGPT Work tool powered by GPT-5.6. The program aims to help small businesses enhance productivity and streamline operations. Previous participants reported significant time savings and the ability to create functional AI workflows quickly.
Key evidence
- The program features hands-on virtual training, including product-specific webinars that demonstrate how to use ChatGPT Work in daily operations.
- At past Small Business AI Jams, 78% of participants built a functional AI workflow in one day, and 42% reported saving over five hours weekly.
- ChatGPT Work, powered by GPT-5.6, is designed to help small businesses manage tasks more efficiently, providing access to advanced AI capabilities.
Why it matters
This initiative addresses the challenges small businesses face, such as limited resources and the need for diverse skills. By integrating AI tools, these businesses can potentially improve efficiency and focus on growth. The program's emphasis on practical training and community support may enhance the adoption of AI technologies in small business operations, which could lead to broader industry impacts.
📖 Reader Mode
~4 min readSmall businesses start with people who are exceptional at what they do—a craft, a trade, an idea they believe in. But building a business demands far more than expertise alone. With a lean team, limited time, and few resources, every owner is expected to be the marketer, accountant, salesperson, operator, and strategist all-in-one. We believe AI can change that by being a force multiplier that extends individual expertise, increases capacity, and gives everyone access to world class tools they need to achieve their greatest ambitions.
We’re announcing the launch of our ChatGPT for small businesses program, an initiative to help small businesses be more productive and scale their businesses with ChatGPT. The ChatGPT for small businesses program includes:
- Hands on virtual training:(opens in a new window) Product-specific webinars that show how small businesses can use ChatGPT Work in their day-to-day. Attendees will see demos with specific small business use cases, get prompts to try, and learn automations and workflows across accounting, marketing, ecommerce, and more. We will also feature partner webinars and Q&As to have clear takeaways that apply immediately to your business.
- In-person small business AI academies(opens in a new window): Meet in person across the US with our OpenAI Academy team. These events bring together local business owners for guided instruction, hands-on exercises, and support from fellow business owners. At our Small Business AI Jams last year, 78% of participants built a functional AI workflow in a single day, and 42% saved more than five hours a week with the help of AI, and we’re excited to recreate this success this year.
- New guides to get started: New content from customer stories, to interactive guides you can upload right into ChatGPT Work to start your workflow, to short-form videos you can consume on your own time. These resources have specific prompts and examples of how business owners can get started with ChatGPT Work in minutes.
- New agents and partners built for small business: Explore plugins, skills, and special offers from a curated list of partners most useful to small businesses, including Dropbox, Shopify, Intuit, Slack, Atlassian, Wix, and more. The skills are built specifically for common small business workflows, while exclusive promotions make it easier to get started with the tools you already use. These workflows, promos, and partner webinars, will ensure any owner can integrate with their other tools and utilize agents to finish work with accuracy and efficiency.
Join us on this journey. Share feedback directly with our product and go-to-market teams through webinar Q&As, conversations at local events, and surveys. We’d love to know what’s working, what's missing, and what you'd like to see next. Your input will help shape our product roadmap, future resources, and the experiences we build for small businesses.
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How small businesses can achieve big ambitions with ChatGPT Work
We recently announced ChatGPT Work, an agent that can complete multi-step tasks and help finish complex projects or initiatives end-to-end. When ChatGPT Work is connected to various parts of your business—your files, applications, and has memory on how you think, write, and work, the possibilities are endless.
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We’re most excited for small businesses to explore use cases with ChatGPT Work, and let it take on tasks that would have otherwise been outsourced, fallen to the wayside, or handled as one of the many hats an owner has to tackle. Every business works differently whether you’re a design studio, technology startup, or a non-profit, but one thing remains the same—the work needs to get done. Some examples of how busy owners can use ChatGPT Work to:
- Be more productive – send a free-flow voice note to ChatGPT Work and it will translate your ideas into a concise Slack note that you can send to multiple channels in one go.
- Stretch your thinking – start every week with a Site that updates in real time with market mentions, competitor performance, or product trends you’re interested in. And ask ChatGPT Work to evaluate your current inventory and send ideas for new products or marketing campaigns to boost sales.
- Improve your services and offerings – create a project with your locations’ customer reviews and ask ChatGPT Work to help create a training presentation to celebrate wins and find opportunities for improvement.
Small businesses need the same enterprise-grade technology, but in an accessible and affordable way. ChatGPT Work is also powered by GPT‑5.6, our most advanced model available to businesses of any size and all subscription plans. Which means businesses can use the latest models and our most powerful agents, whether they are at their desk doing their deepest work, or on the go in between shifts. Small businesses can choose the right level of intelligence model for the work at hand, and together, they give lean teams more flexibility to balance quality, speed, and cost.
ChatGPT Work and GPT‑5.6 is available to small businesses today—and it is only the beginning.
For more information on the ChatGPT Work for small Businesses program and to register for upcoming virtual or in-person events, please visit our website here. You can also sign up to receive the latest small business updates, events, and resources, delivered right to your inbox.
— Originally published at openai.com
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