Small Business AI
What AI Training Should Actually Look Like for a Small Business
Verizon just put $70 million behind nationwide AI training. Here's what a small business should actually teach its team, minus the hype.
By Kindloom Labs · September 23, 2026
What changed
On September 23, 2026, Verizon announced a $70 million effort called Verizon AI Skills for America, according to Reuters. The program folds an existing $20 million Reskilling and Career Transition Fund, originally set up to help departing Verizon employees, into a new $50 million commitment, and it's aimed at job seekers, early-career workers, displaced workers, educators, and small businesses.
Verizon is building a single online training portal that pulls together courses from IBM, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, Coursera, and OpenAI at no cost to participants. The company is also partnering with community nonprofits, including Goodwill Industries International, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship, to provide in-person coaching alongside the online material. Verizon says comparable training can otherwise run more than $700 per person a year.
The honest nuance
Two things are worth separating from the headline number. First, this isn't $70 million in brand-new money: $20 million of it was already sitting in a fund built for laid-off Verizon workers, and the announcement reframes and adds to that fund rather than starting from zero. Second, a funding announcement is not evidence that the training works. Reuters' reporting confirms the size of the commitment and who it targets, but there's no independent data yet on whether people who go through this program end up more productive, more employable, or better at their jobs. Treat it as a sign that AI literacy is becoming a mainstream workforce priority, not as proof that any specific course or curriculum delivers results.
Why it matters for your business
The interesting part of this announcement isn't Verizon's price tag, it's who the training is for. A major employer is now treating basic AI skills the way it might treat safety training or software onboarding: something ordinary staff need, not something reserved for a specialist "AI team." Most small businesses don't have the budget or headcount to hire that specialist, so the real question shifts from "which AI tool should we buy" to "which of our repeatable tasks should our existing team learn to do better with AI, and how do we teach that safely."
Done badly, AI training becomes another expensive software rollout that nobody uses after the first week. Done well, it's a short, specific plan: one workflow, one approved tool, clear rules about what data can and can't go into it, and a way to check the output before it goes out the door.
What to actually do
Pick one recurring task your team already does this week and write down a simple AI workflow for it, in five parts: the input, the approved tool, the specific information that must never be typed into it, the human check required before anything ships, and the one outcome you'll measure to know if it's working.
For example, if a staff member drafts customer follow-up emails: input is the customer's last message and order history; approved tool is your team's sanctioned AI assistant, not a personal account; off-limits information is the customer's payment details, address, and any account number; the human check is that a person reads and edits every draft before sending, every time; and the measure is whether average reply time drops without an increase in customer complaints over the next month. Write it down once, and it becomes something you can teach to a new hire in five minutes instead of re-explaining from scratch.
From Kindloom Labs
Building that first workflow is easier with a starting checklist rather than a blank page. The free Quick Read AI for Small Business Without a Tech Team walks through getting real use out of AI without hiring a specialist, which is exactly the gap this kind of training is trying to fill.
Sources
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