Anthropic courts a new kind of customer: small business owners

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Anthropic is looking to court smaller companies. To that end, the company announced Wednesday the launch of Claude for Small Business, a new suite of services designed for customers who less resemble Walmart and Starbucks and more resemble the local hardware store or coffee shop.

So far, much of the most intensive AI adoption has occurred at the enterprise level. In the recent past, studies have shown that most companies that scaled AI systems beyond experimental or pilot-level integration tended to be large companies with expansive budgets.

This appears to be changing somewhat, as smaller and mid-sized businesses are seeing greater adoption.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.