By Shamina Singh
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a transformative technology that has the potential to revolutionize industries. That includes small businesses, which are the heart of the economy, representing more than 90% of businesses globally and employing half of the world’s workers
However, conversations about AI tend to focus on technology-driven companies and rarely connect to small businesses. This is a missed opportunity.
When Mastercard created the Center for Inclusive Growth in 2014, we understood that the digital economy—the world’s economy—would only work when the smallest of businesses could access the tools and services that supported their success. Those digital tools and services at the time included loans, data, and mobile money. They have now expanded to include AI, tech literacy, and platforms.
Many small businesses around the world have pain points consumers hardly think about, such as streamlining inventory tracking and financial analysis and forecasting. These businesses generate large amounts of data they should be using for competitive advantage. While AI could help them use their data in new and powerful ways, these technologies also create risks and requirements, such as protecting against cyber threats.
As more organizations build AI systems and platforms, we need to ensure that what is created serves the needs of all small businesses. That can only happen when organizations include inputs from diverse sources from the outset, while minimizing and removing inequities as they emerge.
Artificial Intelligence, Actionable Impact
The Center’s history of investments in data science capacity for small businesses and the social sector provides a unique perspective on ways to maximize the opportunities AI offers, such as deriving analysis and insights that can transform small enterprises, informing better resource allocation and decision making in many ways.
One investment is our Inclusive Growth Score, which provides a clear, simple view of social and economic indicators that can help local policymakers and leaders understand how a community can support small businesses and economic development efforts. AI can make a tool like this even more powerful by analyzing larger data sets to understand economic growth trends and depressions at a more granular level.
Yet AI also poses a potent threat. Sixty-one percent of small businesses were victims of a cyber attack in 2023, and AI is driving an increase in the volume and power of these attacks. In Indonesia, the Center worked with the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) to translate a Cybersecurity Toolkit to Bahasa, the nation’s official language, to help Indonesian small businesses deal with cybersecurity threats. When coupled with Mastercard’s AI-enabled card fraud detection technology, which doubles the speed at which it can detect potentially compromised cards, we are providing greater resources that can be applied to protect the entire small business ecosystem.
AI can also help small businesses grow their networks and know-how. The Inclusive AI Small Business tool provides personalized, real-time mentorship assistance to small business owners using diverse content and insights from a newly formed media coalition that includes Newsweek, Group Black, TelevisaUnivision, and Blavity Media Group. One of the Center’s UK partners, Be The Business, hosts Beyond the Hype workshops where business leaders work in small groups with AI experts who can share their experiences and insights with AI while providing actionable guidance for small business owners.
A More Equitable Future
Bringing small businesses around the world into the digital economy can offer a wealth of benefits. To scale these efforts requires collective action and stronger partnership between the public and private sectors. For Mastercard, it means bringing together all our resources and assets to further the cause of helping small businesses realize the promise of AI.
Today, I have no doubt the rapidly advancing capabilities of AI will help millions more small businesses and the communities that depend on them. With the right partners, we can deploy AI technologies so the benefits of a growing digital economy extend to every small business.
Join us and together we can harness the power of AI to support small businesses around the world and create a more equitable future for all.
Learn more about Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth and its Decade of Impact.
Shamina Singh is founder and president of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and EVP, Sustainability at Mastercard.
