Meta and Anthropic AI saves time, not customers: Alignable's Groves

Groves writes from inside the small business world, not from the AI labs. Alignable is a network of 10 million small business owners, and the company co-hosts small business AI training with Anthropic, a stake he discloses up front. That vantage point shapes his argument: he has 13 years of data on how small businesses actually find work, and it points away from the tools the giants are building.

The data he cites is about referrals, not software. In Alignable's surveys, members say about 85% of their customers come through people who already trust them. Across 35,000 local communities, members have formed 226 million business connections, most of which never produce work in either direction. When members describe their ideal customer, the typical owner has about 190 such businesses a single introduction away, and for one in four it is more than 600. That is the gap Groves says a general assistant cannot close, because the answer lives in relationship data it does not have.

His prescription is less about picking a vendor than about directing attention. He divides small business AI into three forms — the personal assistant the giants are fighting over, AI embedded in systems like Intuit and Shopify that hold a business's own data, and AI built on relationships between businesses. The first delivers time, the second control, and the third growth, which he says almost nobody is talking about. Owners, in his view, should take the time savings but decide in advance where the reclaimed hours go — toward the few relationships that actually send work.