Study Finds Small Businesses Are Optimistic for End of 2024

In the newly published fourth Amex Trendex: Small Business Edition, the report looked at the current state of small businesses and the outlook for the rest of the year. The study was conducted by Morning Consult LLC on behalf of American Express and surveyed more than 1,100 U.S. small business financial decision-makers, including more than 500 businesses with 10 employees or less, 400 businesses with 11 to 100 employees and 200 businesses with 101 to 500 employees.  

Notably, nine out of 10 businesses reported that they remain optimistic about the company achieving its end-of-year goals. While the past few years of pandemics, increasingly high cost of living and a volatile market have made SMB owners get creative and think outside the box, 87 percent of SMB owners said that they feel more confident in their business ownership skills over the years. 

“Even in an uncertain environment, business owners have grown to be not just comfortable but confident,” said Gina Taylor Cotter, executive vice president and general manager of small business products at American Express. “They have adapted to this new normal. They’ve learned how to be scrappy, savvy and flexible over the past couple of years, and they’re taking advantage of what they’ve learned as they prepare for the future.” 

Because of the continued uncertainty, SMB owners are finding new ways to approach customers and meet their increasingly demanding needs — with 57 percent of SMBs creating a social media profile of their business and nearly a third (32 percent) doing so for the first time. And a third (33 percent) of SMB owners reported collaborations with a brand in the past year. 

One important aspect of SMBs reported as a key to success is having the financial tools to do so — 83 percent of respondents agreed that the “financial tools to run their businesses are just as important as those they use to make or sell their product or service.” 

Millennials and Gen Z SMB owners are also seeing the possibilities that the future holds for them, but they are being more selective about where they spend their time and money. Expanding into new sectors is a major goal of Millennial and Gen Z survey respondents, with the younger generations increasingly interested in scaling their businesses to new locations over the long term. And the top goal overall for Gen Z and Millennials (55 percent) and Gen X and Boomers (54 percent) remains business longevity. 

“Younger, digitally savvy generations see opportunity in the future,” Cotter explained. “Having come into business ownership with years of experience using social media and digital platforms, they’re redefining how businesses reach and engage with their customers in new and often more meaningful ways.” 

As artificial intelligence continues to be a major part of today’s world, younger SMB owners are almost twice as likely to use AI — 70 percent of Millennials and Gen Z see themselves as early adopters of the technology, nearly double that of Gen X and Boomers (36 percent). Moreover, 60 percent of Millennials and Gen Z see themselves running a digitally native business, as compared to 36 percent of Gen Z and Boomers.  

Nearly 59 percent of all Millennial and Gen Z respondents said their business currently uses AI, with these two cohorts most likely to use AI for automating routine tasks and cash flow analytics. With 34 percent of Gen X and Boomers using AI in their business, they use the technology for chatbots and virtual assistance, fraud protection and workforce management. 

And across all generations, the most common uses for AI include analyzing customer data (39 percent), chatbots and virtual assistants (39 percent) and content creation (33 percent). The small businesses implementing AI said they feel they have a competitive edge — 48 percent of businesses using AI said they feel they’re “more prepared than their competitors when it comes to keeping with trends and changing customer preferences.”  

One major takeaway for Cotter is that community has “always mattered for small businesses.” Cotter cites that while Main Street used to be the major hub for community, they have now migrated online where businesses’ customers now reside. 

In other Amex news, Resy recently introduced a new “Discover” tab on the Resy iOS Apple app to give more access to the restaurant reservation service’s editorial content. The integration of its editorial content within the app is to help cut down on restaurant research and give its patrons curated and trusted recommendations to then book a reservation. 

The Discover tab includes Resy’s “Hit Lists” and “New on Resy” — curated by its editorial team is updated monthly for top dining in U.S. cities, spotlighting newly opened restaurants, intel on best dishes to order, how to snag reservations at the hottest spots and spotlighting restaurant owners and chefs. Resy also recently launched its shareable Lists, to find where Resy chefs enjoy eating.