AI is expanding opportunity—but Black entrepreneurs still face a structural gap
TheGrio...
Even as artificial intelligence feels inevitable, the systems around AI have their own share of issues, namely, for the sustained growth of Black creatives and entrepreneurs.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
In Dayton, Ohio, a wellness entrepreneur named Shondale Atkinson begins her day drafting health education materials, responding to clients, and preparing marketing content for her business. Just a few years ago, these tasks would have required a team she could not afford. Today, with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence, she can produce professional-grade content, manage communications, and operate with a level of efficiency that was once out of reach for a small business.
Her experience reflects a broader shift already underway. Across the country, Black entrepreneurs are using artificial intelligence to extend their capacity, reduce costs, and compete in markets that have historically been difficult to access. For businesses operating with limited capital, AI is not simply a productivity tool; it is reshaping what is possible.
This is the opportunity. However, whether that opportunity translates into sustained economic growth depends on more than access to technology alone. It depends on whether Black entrepreneurs have the resources necessary to use AI not only to work more efficiently but also to build, scale, and compete in the broader economy.
In a recent policy brief, “How State Policymakers and Community Leaders Can Help Close the Federal AI Policy Gap for Black Entrepreneurs,” I examine how this tension is unfolding in real time. What I found is that while AI is expanding what Black entrepreneurs can do, the systems shaping the AI economy are not yet structured to ensure they can fully benefit from that expansion compared to their white counterparts.
What emerges is a structural gap—one that continues to shape how Black entrepreneurs can participate in the AI economy.
How policy shapes how Black entrepreneurs thrive with AI
Black-owned businesses represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. economy, yet the vast majority operate as non-employer firms. As a result, many generate income but lack the capacity to scale, hire, and compete in capital-intensive sectors. At the same time, Black entrepreneurs continue to face persistent barriers to capital, uneven access to broadband and digital infrastructure, and limited integration into the networks that facilitate growth and market access.
Artificial intelligence does not remove these barriers. In many cases, it amplifies them. The effective use of AI requires not only creativity and effort, but also access to infrastructure, the ability to experiment with new tools, and the capital necessary to invest in growth. Entrepreneurs who already possess these resources are better positioned to integrate AI into their operations and capture its benefits. At the same time, those operating in resource-constrained environments face a more difficult path.
In this context, the implications extend beyond individual businesses to the broader economy. Artificial intelligence presents both extraordinary opportunities and heightened risks. If existing inequities are left unaddressed, the same technologies that could expand access to entrepreneurship may instead deepen longstanding disparities. Economic modeling suggests that, without deliberate intervention, the racial wealth divide could widen by as much as $43 billion annually by 2045. This is not simply a question of uneven adoption; it is a question of whether the benefits of technological change will be broadly distributed or increasingly concentrated.
How these dynamics unfold is largely shaped by the policy environment. As my research shows, recent federal AI efforts have placed less emphasis on explicitly addressing issues of equity, bias, and structural inequality. This does not mean these dynamics disappear; rather, it means they are less directly accounted for in policy design and implementation. As a result, when structural barriers are not explicitly addressed, the distribution of benefits is unlikely to correct itself. Instead, existing disparities risk being reproduced—and potentially intensified—within the systems shaping the AI economy.
This gap becomes clearer when examining how AI is framed at the national level. With the release of the Trump Administration’s National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence and the AI Action Plan, the federal government has articulated a national strategy to navigate the economic and technological implications of AI. The framework places significant emphasis on innovation, national competitiveness, and a unified federal approach to AI governance, while also identifying workforce readiness as a key pathway for participation in the AI economy.
This focus is important. However, on its own, it risks leaving the structural barriers that shape economic participation intact.
By emphasizing workforce development as a primary mechanism for participation, the current federal approach largely frames AI as a question of how individuals will adapt to changing job requirements. It offers far less guidance on how entrepreneurs and small businesses—particularly those already operating with limited resources—will access the infrastructure, capital, and networks necessary to adopt AI and compete in technology-driven markets.
For Black entrepreneurs, this distinction is critical. The challenge is not simply preparing individuals for jobs in an AI-driven economy. It is ensuring that they can build businesses, develop products, and capture value within that economy.
Access to work and access to ownership are fundamentally different outcomes. One determines participation in the labor market; the other determines the ability to generate and sustain wealth.
In the absence of a more expansive federal approach, state and local governments, philanthropic institutions, and private-sector actors will play an important role in shaping how AI is integrated into the broader economy. As I’ve argued, expanding participation in the AI economy requires addressing four interconnected domains: knowledge and training, infrastructure, capital and market access, and representation in governance. This includes investing in applied AI training that meets small businesses where they are, expanding access to broadband and community-based digital infrastructure, improving access to capital and market opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs, and ensuring that small business perspectives—particularly those of Black entrepreneurs—are reflected in the policymaking and governance processes shaping the development and deployment of AI.
These interventions are not simply equity-driven. They are central to fostering a more competitive and resilient economic system in which innovation is broadly distributed rather than narrowly concentrated.
Artificial intelligence is often described as an inevitable force of economic transformation. While its development may be difficult to slow, the distribution of its benefits is not predetermined. Policy decisions, institutional design, and patterns of investment shape it.
Entrepreneurs like Shondale Atkinson are already demonstrating what is possible when access meets opportunity. The question is whether the systems surrounding them will evolve quickly enough to support their growth.
Artificial intelligence is expanding what Black entrepreneurs can do. The more important question is whether they will have the opportunity to turn that expanded capacity into ownership, scale, and lasting economic power.
Danielle A. Davis Canty is the Senior Advisor and Director of Technology Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Host of The Miseducation of Technology Podcast, and a Public Voices Fellow on Technology in the Public Interest with The OpEd Project.