BizChat: Scaffolding AI-Powered Business Planning for Small Business Owners Across Digital Skill Levels

TL;DR

BizChat is a web application leveraging large language models to assist small business owners of varying digital skills in creating business plans, incorporating accessible design, micro-learning, and contextualized interactions.

Contribution

It introduces BizChat, a novel LLM-powered tool designed with learning science principles to support small business owners across digital skill levels in business planning.

Findings

Designed for accessibility and extensibility

Incorporates micro-learning for entrepreneurial education

Framework for future deployment and evaluation

Abstract

Generative AI can help small business owners automate tasks, increase efficiency, and improve their bottom line. However, despite the seemingly intuitive design of systems like ChatGPT, significant barriers remain for those less comfortable with technology. To address these disparities, prior work highlights accessory skills -- beyond prompt engineering -- users must master to successfully adopt generative AI including keyboard shortcuts, editing skills, file conversions, and browser literacy. Building on a design workshop series and 15 interviews with small businesses, we introduce BizChat, a large language model (LLM)-powered web application that helps business owners across digital skills levels write their business plan -- an essential but often neglected document. To do so, BizChat's interface embodies three design considerations inspired by learning sciences: ensuring accessibility to users with less digital skills while maintaining extensibility to power users ("low-floor-high-ceiling"), providing in situ micro-learning to support entrepreneurial education ("just-in-time learning"), and framing interaction around business activities ("contextualized technology introduction"). We conclude with plans for a future BizChat deployment.