Signage for financial software company Intuit at the company’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View, California, August 24, 2016. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).
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Here are five things in small business technology that happened this week and how they affect your small business. Did you miss them?
This Week in Small Business Technology News
Small Business Technology News #1 – Intuit unveils a revolutionary system of intelligence to help businesses grow in the AI era.
Intuit has launched Intuit Intelligence and Intuit Accountant Suite. Intuit Intelligence is deigned to “unify a business’s data” with a team of AI agents that provide automated task completion, and instant answers to questions like “how do I turn leads into sales?” The Accountant Suite is a team of AI agents that includes a tax sales agent to keep businesses compliant; a payroll agent to ensure accuracy of employee hours and timely payments; and an accounting agent that can organize transactions and reduce numerical errors. (Source: Intuit)
Why this is important for your small business:
Sounds great, but do you trust it? That will be the biggest challenge Intuit and other accounting software providers will have as they roll out new AI tools to help their customers automate their backoffice accounting processes. I am of the belief that if employees – particularly accounting staff – want to protect their jobs going forward they better get very familiar (and expert) with these tools. I doubt any business will be relying on them without scrupulous oversight. But over time, and as they get trained, I’m sure these AI features will work well and it will be the smart accountant who leverages them to make themselves irreplaceable.
Small Business Technology News #2 – PayPal wallet comes to ChatGPT.
PayPal is integrating its wallet into ChatGPT, enabling seamless payments and expanding AI-driven commerce. Adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) – developed by Open AI and payments platform Stripe – PayPal has partnered with OpenAI to embed its digital wallet directly into ChatGPT allowing millions of ChatGPT users to check out instantly using PayPal for merchants that use OpenAI Instant Checkout. Benefits include the use multiple funding sources: bank accounts, PayPal balance, credit/debit cards. Shoppers can also gain access to PayPal’s buyer/seller protections, post-purchase tracking, and dispute resolution. (Source: Finextra)
Why this is important for your small business:
ChatGPT has been taking a number of steps over the past few months to enable more e-commerce transactions from directly within its platform. PayPal adds a payment option (and there are others). If your business does a lot of online sales the question you’ll have to answer is how to get your products included in ChatGPT’s responses when prospects are searching for what you offer. I have no answer to that – and neither do the experts. But that’s where the money will be.
Small Business Technology News #3 – Organizations that delay responding to email breaches are 79% more likely to suffer a ransomware hit.
Organizations that delay responding to email breaches face a 79 percent higher risk of ransomware attacks, according to new research from cybersecurity firm Barracuda Networks. The report gathered data from 2000 IT and security decision makers in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific. (Source: PR Newswire)
Why this is important for your small business:
“Email security is no longer just about stopping spam or mass phishing – it’s about preventing the first domino from falling,” said Neal Bradbury, chief product officer at Barracuda. Your trained employees should be able to identify and report any suspicious emails to your IT security firm. Not providing this training? Don’t have an IT security firm? That’s a problem.
Small Business Technology News #4 – Over half of small business owners’ questions are about taxes.
Banking platform Lili’s “Accountant AI” has revealed that over half of small business owners’ financial questions are about taxes. The data was based on 1200 Lili customers who consulted the program’s Accountant AI – which provides instant recommendations and guidance for business owners about their finances. Just over half of the questions asked (52 percent) were specifically about taxes – choosing the right structure, reducing deductions and lowering liabilities. Within this group, 27 percent of the questions addressed those the right tax structure and reductions. Nearly 20 percent of inquiries related to capital raising, budgeting, and growth, showing a desire for long-term planning beyond tax concerns. Audit anxiety is evident, with 16 percent of questions focused on understanding and avoiding audits. (Source: Yahoo Finance)
Why this is important for your small business:
I’m not surprised, considering that taxes can bite into 20-30% of a small business owner’s income. Good accountants should be choosing and having their clients leverage AI to research tax question on their own…and then them implement those suggestions (after verifying, of course).
Small Business Technology News #5 – ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity Comet challenge Google Chrome’s long reign.
AI-powered browsers like ChatGPT’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet are emerging as serious challengers to Google Chrome’s dominance, signaling a shift toward intelligent, assistant-driven web experiences. These browsers aim to transform passive web navigation into active, conversational discovery, where users interact with AI agents to find, summarize, and act on information. For example, Comet will synthesize information across multiple sources. Users can cluster tabs via the tool Workspace and ask a question about all of the information taken collectively. Google Chrome – while still dominant – faces pressure from these AI-native competitors that offer more than just speed and extensions. The shift reflects a broader trend: users increasingly want intelligent assistance rather than just access to information. (Source: Hans India)
Why this is important for your small business:
I’m a heavy Chrome user. So what will it take for me to move away to one of the browsers offered above? Like the article says: intelligent assistance. Quick answers to questions. Speed. Usefulness.
Each week I round up five small business technology news stories and explain why they’re important for your business. If you have any interesting stories, please post to my X account @genemarks