Anthropic is in an all-out blitz to sell Claude to small businesses

Anthropic sold corporate giants on Claude. Now the AI company is in an all-out blitz for the mom-and-pops.

In May, Anthropic launched an AI tool specifically for small businesses. Since then, it says it's garnered 900,000 installations for the Claude for Small Business plugin and is angling to expand the tool's reach. It's planning a new slate of workshops to boost its adoption, and training people to spread the Claude gospel.

As Anthropic prepares for its initial public offering, small businesses present a major opportunity for mass adoption: In the US, they employ more than 45% of the private sector's workers and account for around 44% of the country's GDP, according to data from the US Small Business Administration. And the share of small businesses that use generative AI jumped from 23% in 2023 to 58% in 2025, according to a survey by the Chamber of Commerce.

Unlike Anthropic's coding clientele, small businesses have small budgets — and different demands and anxieties. Small firms are caught between AI sales pitches on one side and backlash against the technology on the other. Business owners told Business Insider they've faced concerns from customers for using AI and also found helpful ways to use the technology behind the scenes.

The Claude for Small Business tool handles a range of tasks for small businesses, such as reconciling finances through a company's QuickBooks account. On Tuesday, Anthropic added new plugins from companies like Shopify, Stripe, and Zoom. Lina Ochman, Anthropic's head of US small and medium businesses, called the tool "an agentic starter pack."

Now, Anthropic is creating a cascade of AI-focused workshops and quasi-influencers of the tool. It held its first sessions in San Francisco and New York last week to train people to become "Approved Claude SMB Trainers," who have to commit to hosting five workshops for small- and medium-sized businesses by the end of the year.

Anthropic's biggest rival, OpenAI, also introduced a program for small businesses this year, as these labs compete for their share of mom-and-pop shops.

This spring, Ochman traveled the country talking up Claude's potential for small businesses, hitting Chicago, Baton Rouge, San Jose, and a slate of other cities. Around 100 business owners attended each of the stops' half-day workshops.

Ochman said she found that most business owners fell in the camp of chatting with AI tools and not yet letting them automate large chunks of their business. They worried about AI's accuracy, asked if they risked getting hacked, and told her they didn't know where to start.

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Business Insider also spoke with small businesses using AI tools from both Anthropic and OpenAI. Some say they've gotten backlash from customers. Steve Zumoff, who runs a tiki bar in Pittsburgh called Spork Island Trading Co., said he got several one-star reviews on his bar's Google page because he'd posted an AI-designed sign out front. He said he expects people to get more comfortable with AI over time, adding that he'd used ChatGPT in figuring out the bar's interior design.

"I have a bag of tools with an electric drill, and that's taken away a job from a carpenter, probably," Zumoff said. "I need to research something, I use Google; that takes a job away from a librarian."