Making time for small-business opportunities
AI helped find a small-business grant and prepare the application. I reviewed the information and handled the final confirmation.
Once Chloe’s Mama Kitchen had been operating for a while, I asked my AI agent to look for another kind of opportunity: grants, offers and support programs that might suit our little business. I wanted it to search across federal, state and local government sources, as well as programs run by businesses.
Doing that research myself, then working through each application, would take a lot of time. For some opportunities, I would question whether the effort was worth it. With an AI agent helping with the searching and application work, more of those opportunities became practical to consider.
One example was the 2026 Amex Shop Small Grants program. It offered eligible Australian small businesses the chance to receive A$20,000. My agent found the opportunity and helped work through the application for Chloe’s Mama Kitchen.
There was more involved than finding a link. The agent prepared the application content, worked through the form and assembled the supporting documents. The saved preparation record included a project plan and the completed main sections of the application, ready for the final review and declaration.
My part came at the end: I reviewed what it had filled in and clicked the final confirmation myself. The agent had done the preparation, while I still needed to check the information and make that final decision.
I am sharing the application experience here, without claiming that we have been awarded the grant. What changed for me was the amount of research and form-filling I had to do personally. An opportunity that might otherwise have felt too time-consuming became something we could work through and put in front of me for review.
