Goldman Sachs launches $500 million AI push for small businesses

Goldman Sachs is putting $500 million behind a new effort to help US small businesses actually use artificial intelligence. It brought four of the biggest names in AI along for the launch. Then CEO David Solomon told the audience that most of the economy doesn’t need the most powerful models those companies build. What Goldman announced The bank unveiled its Small Business AI Institute on Thursday, October 22, 2026. The event took place at Goldman’s headquarters in lower Manhattan, and Fortune was in attendance. The institute carries a $500 million commitment. It is designed to strengthen 10,000 Small Businesses, the bank’s long-running entrepreneur program. Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI are partners. The program rests on three pillars: Practical training to help owners put AI tools to work Research into how AI gets applied in small companies Improved access to capital for participating businesses “But there’s very little that we do where we need frontier models,” Solomon said. The adoption gap Goldman wants to close A Babson College survey of program alumni, conducted in August 2026, found that 86% now use AI in their operations. Two years earlier, in 2024, that figure was 5...