Entrepreneurs are turning to AI to speed the creation of new businesses, with Gen Z leading the way. That’s according to a new report from the payroll software firm Gusto.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
We know that AI is costing some people their jobs, but it’s also speeding the growth of new businesses, especially among Gen Z entrepreneurs, meaning people under age 30. NPR’s Andrea Hsu reports.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Coffee is a thing in Justus Shaw’s family. Four of his five sisters have worked as baristas, and at home in Nashville…
JUSTUS SHAW: We had – always had espresso machines, and we were always making drinks for ourselves and friends and guests. And so the table talk was always like, oh, we should open up a coffee shop one day.
HSU: About this time last year, he turned that table talk into a mobile espresso bar. He calls it Shaws Coffee Cart.
SHAW: My sisters obviously helped me work it.
HSU: After all, they knew how to do latte art.
SHAW: That was great, helping support, work for free, all that kind of stuff. We were all in it together.
HSU: Also helping out for 20 bucks a month was an assistant named Claude, the AI bot.
SHAW: Big Claude guy, so shoutout Claude.
HSU: Shaw found himself consulting his chatbot friend about, well, everything.
SHAW: There’s taxes. There’s legal stuff. There’s employees.
HSU: Without AI, Shaw says, he would have been forced to…
SHAW: Either consult people or just do a lot of research to try to find the answer to one question.
HSU: AI, he says, has helped him grow faster. Aaron Terrazas is an economist with Gusto. That’s an HR management company whose payroll platform is used by half a million small businesses, including Shaw’s.
AARON TERRAZAS: You know, you think about a young startup in the past, having to hire lawyers is very expensive. Having to hire admins was a luxury.
HSU: Now, Terrazas says, many new business owners are finding those are no longer barriers. Gusto surveyed 1,000 people who opened businesses in 2025. A majority said AI made the process significantly faster or less expensive.
TERRAZAS: It’s more of an accelerator than, you know, opening up brand-new opportunities.
HSU: Gusto also found the younger the entrepreneur, the more likely they were to rely on AI. More than 70% of Gen Zers used AI to launch their businesses, compared with just over half of Gen Xers. Justus Shaw, who’s 25, says it wasn’t something he really thought about. Chatbots were already part of his life.
SHAW: Obviously, when, like, you know, ChatGPT first came out, I was on that trend and jumped on that and was using it for – I don’t know – anything, really.
HSU: And it’s worked for him. After 10 months, Shaw now has two coffee carts. Revenue has hit six figures, and he does four to six events a week – corporate gatherings, graduation parties, church events, even weddings. He gets inquiries over text, Instagram and email. He says Claude has made responding easy.
SHAW: So if I’m going to send them a DM, it’s going to give me something a little bit shorter, you know, a little more to the point. If it’s going to be doing an email, it’s going to be a little bit longer, a little bit more formal. You know, it can throw emojis in there.
HSU: Because who doesn’t love an emoji? Now, as for whether AI is taking jobs or helping to create them, it’s a little fuzzy. Justus Shaw hasn’t hired an assistant. He hasn’t paid a lawyer or an accountant, but because his sisters have moved on to other things, he has hired four baristas.
SHAW: It’s a part-time structure. You know, it could be a random 2 o’clock on a Friday, and it could be a 7 a.m. or a 7 p.m. on Monday.
HSU: At the end of the day, Shaw is still very much a people person. He loves doing pop-ups downtown on the weekends.
SHAW: One of my favorite things is just people walking by, getting to meet people, and family and friends and strangers getting to come up and buy a coffee.
HSU: Coffee that, at least for now, is still crafted by a human. Andrea Hsu, NPR News.
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