Your competitors are already flashing the words “AI-powered” across every slide, every pitch.
Every headline warns about job displacement. Meanwhile, is your business still buried under spreadsheets?
Here’s what most SMBs don’t know.
The U.S. and Canadian governments (plus others worldwide) have actually invested billions in AI support specifically for small businesses. But as of last May, only 21% of SMBs were aware that these programs exist.
Even worse, among those who are aware of the support, 40% don’t see its relevance, 30% find the applications too complicated, and 27% say the support doesn’t meet their needs.
In this article, you’ll discover if your government’s program matches your needs, how to navigate government platforms, and the exact steps to access support. In addition, we provide some analysis on the effectiveness of these policies.
Canada: AI Compute Access Fund
Canada’s program is specifically for AI startups with significant computing costs, not for general SMBs seeking guidance on existing tools.
What You Likely Need to Have
- Clear commercialization pathways
- Organizational Capacity
- Technological maturity
- Benefits to Canada
What You’ll Get
- Infrastructure cost coverage
- Access to Canadian cloud providers
- Technical support for deployment
- Connection to the AI ecosystem
Would This Resource Be Effective?
The fund believes that SMBs need computing power and technical resources. This program, similar to those offered by the EU and China, invests heavily in supercomputers, data centers, and technical infrastructure. They assume a lack of computing resources blocks AI adoption.
Here’s the main problem: This serves the 5% of SMBs with developing custom AI models, not the 95% who just need help automating customer emails or inventory management.
USA: An Interesting Case
In July 2025, the White House published its Winning the Race AMERICA’S AI ACTION PLAN with a lot of publicity, highlighting the importance of the global AI race, especially against China.
However, many of the recommended actions for SMBs remain largely invisible at the moment.
Federal support for small businesses in America is the responsibility of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). It features a page on AI for small business on the SBA website.
This page highlights seven ways AI can help small businesses and four risks to watch out for. Plus, it includes a list of AI terminology (now outdated—here’s an updated, helpful list of 2025’s AI terms) and links to two additional resources published before April 2024.
The page was last updated on February 14, 2025, which is almost a lifetime ago, given the advancements in AI over the past year.
Final Reminder
The 20/80 rule applies to SMBs, too. As McKinsey reveals, 80% of SMB business value comes from just 20% of AI applications.
Therefore, your priority—if you haven’t done so already—is to identify the 20% of operations that are automatable and deliver 80% of the AI value, rather than adopting AI everywhere.
At this stage, seeking expert or consulting support is as important as acquiring AI capabilities. Only then can you efficiently seek and utilize resources, such as your government’s support, to accelerate your AI adoption.
Xiangpeng Wan is the Product Lead at the AI solution startup NetMind.AI. Xiangpeng has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the Stevens Institute of Technology and has a keen focus on enterprise AI agents, intelligent data analysis, information retrieval, and reinforcement learning.
Photo courtesy Thomas K via pexels
