SBA Mandated to Launch Free AI Training for Small Businesses Within 180 Days—But Without New Funding

The new Artificial Intelligence Wisdom for Innovative Small Enterprises Act, or the AI–WISE Act, is straightforward: it tells the Small Business Administration (SBA) to get busy creating free, comprehensive educational materials about Artificial Intelligence (AI) for small businesses. Think of it as a crash course in AI for everyone from the local bakery owner to the five-person software firm.

The AI Crash Course: What the SBA Has to Teach

Under Section 2, the SBA Administrator must establish and maintain these educational resources on an existing SBA online platform within 180 days of the bill becoming law. This isn't just a quick pamphlet; the required content is detailed and covers the stuff that actually matters when you’re trying to run a business.

For instance, the materials must explain how AI models work and what their limits are, which is crucial for anyone relying on these tools for customer service or content creation. They also need to cover how to spot AI-generated outputs, a handy skill in the age of deepfakes and automated emails. More importantly for the bottom line, the SBA must provide guidance on how to identify tasks AI can reliably perform to improve productivity, and how to figure out if an AI tool is actually worth the investment.

Managing Risk and Keeping It Real

For the small business owner, the riskiest parts of AI adoption are often legal and operational. The bill addresses this head-on, requiring the SBA to teach businesses how to effectively identify, evaluate, and manage AI risks. This includes critical topics like ensuring the privacy of user inputs (if you’re feeding customer data into an AI, you need to know where it goes) and the importance of retaining human involvement in important decisions informed by AI. This is the bill saying, “Don’t let the robot run the show without a human checking the work.”

The materials must be neutral and impartial, meaning the SBA can’t promote one specific AI model (like ChatGPT or Bard) over another. To ensure accuracy and relevance in this fast-moving field, the SBA must consult with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and an Advisory Working Group made up of AI experts, academics, and small business outreach professionals. This group is tasked with keeping the curriculum current and grounded in real-world business needs.

The Catch: No New Money, More Work

While the goal of boosting small business AI literacy is great, Section 3, the "Compliance with CUTGO" section, throws a wrench in the works. It explicitly states that no additional funding is authorized to implement this Act.

This means the SBA has to develop a comprehensive, expert-vetted, and continuously updated AI training program—and they have to do it by pulling resources from existing budgets. For the SBA, which already struggles to keep up with demand for its core programs, this could mean either diverting funds from other critical small business services or potentially delivering a less robust product than promised. It’s a classic mandate: great idea, but figure out how to pay for it yourself. The success of the AI-WISE Act will likely hinge on how creatively the SBA can leverage its existing resources and resource partners (like local Small Business Development Centers) to pull off this significant task on a shoestring budget.