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Palo Alto-based real estate agent Christina Hood estimates that artificial intelligence tools have saved her roughly 10 hours per week since she’s started using them. That’s time she has gotten back to spend with her husband and to volunteer in the community.
Across town, Nob Hill Hardware Store’s manager Michael Fechete says that so far AI has limited use for the business, where customers stop by to purchase tools or ask advice from Fechete.
Since ChatGPT was released in 2022, a swirl of media narratives have alternatively argued that people must prepare for the AI jobs apocalypse and that said apocalypse probably won’t happen.
In Silicon Valley, the epicenter of artificial intelligence, local businesses’ usage of the technology varies widely. Definitions and perceptions of AI also differ. Some consumers think only of generative large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude. Other people might think of voice assistants like Siri or Amazon Alexa, writing aids like Grammarly, or algorithmic content recommendations from Spotify or Netflix. Michael Kennedy, Intuit’s chief corporate affairs officer, has arrived at a simple definition of the technology that everyone is talking about.
“If there’s one way that Intuit talks about or defines AI, it’s done-for-you experiences, for the customer,” Kennedy said. “They bring in the things that are the most important to them – their taxes, their business, their payroll and their money experiences – and the product does these things for them that gives them insight into how to grow their business, how to save more money, how to earn more money.”
Some local business associations have organized workshops exploring AI’s applications for businesses. Hood, the board president of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, is co-hosting a workshop on June 10 and June 17 about how businesses can use AI to grow. A similar event was organized by the San Mateo Chamber of Commerce in early May, and another one focused on AI and businesses is upcoming in San Francisco on May 27.
Some individuals, like Hood, have gone all-in on AI. Hood is a Realtor at Keller Williams, a large real estate franchise with over 1,000 offices across the country, including one in Palo Alto. Keller Williams also has a large technology arm that builds tools specifically for Realtors.
Hood started using language models like Gemini and Claude to produce marketing materials, such as to create semi-automated posts on LinkedIn. An online presence, she said, is essential for boosting her reach and making her presence known in the community. Hood uses a tool called Beacons.ai to automate meeting scheduling and AI agents such as Manus — from an AI company that Meta recently tried to buy, but was blocked by the Chinese government — to organize her calendar.
“[It] act[s] somewhat like a chief of staff and it would send me a notification telling me, ‘Here is what your day is.’” Hood said. She added that it gives her “an overview of the calendar, an overview of any important emails that are coming up, that I need to deal with right away.”
Hood learned many of the AI tools from another Keller Williams Realtor who taught Hood to use AI tools and automation to boost her efficiency and reach.
“I’m about making things simple for people,” Hood said. “I’m very much a proponent of the use of AI for good.”
On California Ave. at the hardware store, customers find Fechete and inquire about which screws will replace those that were too short or the appropriate TV cable that will plug into their device. Fechete knows his inventory and which tool is appropriate for his customers’ requests.
“That’s why people come here. To get information.” Fechete said. “I don’t know if the AI can tell people how to do the right thing.”
While customers can order hardware parts online or use artificial intelligence to research how to use tools, people come to the store for emergency parts and for employees’ knowledge of how to use them, he said.
“It’s the human-to-human contact that AI can’t replace,” Fechete said.
Down California Avenue at shoe-repair shop The Cobblery, owner Steve Oberhauser said that AI has limited use for him as well — except for certain business cases like packing and scanning,
“AI can’t teach me how to fix a shoe,” he said.
AI adoption was higher among larger businesses last year, according to a 2025 survey from the National Federation of Independent Businesses. NFIB is an association for small businesses with over 300,000 members nationally. Further, current AI systems are generally more capable in digital tasks than in navigating with the physical world – where many small businesses operate and do somewhat niche tasks, said NFIB Director of Research and Policy Analysis Peter Hansen.
“They are retailers, transportation, warehousing, construction,” said Hansen. “These are all spaces where you need people, touching things, moving things, talking directly to other people.”
Hansen added that another barrier to using AI for some small businesses is figuring out how to use existing tools. Businesses with older owners or with established processes are also less likely to adopt AI, but developers can help business owners think through use cases, Hansen said.
“You’re talking about some of the most busy people in the world in terms of the owners, right?” Hansen said. “They don’t have employee development where the employees can go to conferences and learn about the latest tools.”
Small businesses are the “backbone of the economy,” said Kennedy, the officer at Intuit, a large financial technology company headquartered in Mountain View. The company works with many small businesses, Kennedy said, and AI is already baked into many of Intuit’s products: TurboTax, the accounting tool QuickBook, and the marketing platform MailChimp.
Intuit has also embarked on a More With AI Tour where it conducts AI literacy workshops on how to use visual-generation tools, how to write prompts for large language models, and AI safety. Around 60 businesses attended the training in Mountain View last year, Kennedy said.
According to Intuit’s metrics, AI adoption has been high. Its Small Business Insight survey from February reported that 77% of surveyed businesses regularly use AI. In contrast, a quarter of businesses indicated they used AI in NFIB’s survey from last year. The differences in businesses sampled and the timing of the surveys likely influence the discrepancy.
Nick Haschka, CEO of OnPoint Generators, said AI has transformed the way his firm works. The Monterey-based company, which has 30 employees and is an Intuit customer, installs back-up generators for clients around Northern California and Nevada.
Haschka uses AI tools for almost every facet of his operation. He set up an agent that ingested nearly all of OnPoint’s historical documents: technician tickets, invoices, equipment manuals, Requests For Proposals (RFPs), documents issued by potential for bids from contractors.
“Think of it as an AI historian for everything that’s ever happened in the company,” he said.
Using the AI tool that Haschka built, technicians search information about the torque specification – the amount of rotational force needed – for a certain piece of equipment or what kinds of equipment a technician needs for a particular service. It can tell him the financial history of a customer, like how much the company paid for a certain piece of equipment or help identify RFPs that are applicable to OnPoint.
Technicians may have spent hours hunting for information, Haschka said. That process now takes seconds. It also cuts down on training time for technicians and checks for mistakes. And the tools have only gotten better, especially in the last year, Haschka said.
“A we continue to improve the AI, the office is going to be able to handle a significantly higher volume of work, which allows us to grow business faster than we need to grow the staff,” Haschka said.
Haschka built the infrastructure using Claude Code and Google Gemini. The system works pretty well on its own, he said, but humans still need to check the AI agent’s answers. His background is in industrial engineering, and while he has some coding experience, he is not formally trained as a software engineer. Still, he has become an experienced AI engineer.
His advice for people new to AI tools is to ask the tool how you can use it.
“I think the only thing to be scared of is the person who uses these tools better than you taking your job,” he said. “The tool can’t take your job.”
