Top tips from founders on how to use AI to help grow your business

Small business owners and founders need to wear many hats. Using AI, they’re able to transform how they run their business, from content creation and data analysis to customer care and boosting personal productivity. More than 36 million small businesses operate in the United States in 2026, making up 99.9% of U.S. companies. Today, a growing percentage of these small businesses report using AI, with 91% reporting a positive impact. So we asked some of these small business owners to share their top tips on how to use AI for business success.

Below, eight founders share how they're using Google Workspace with Gemini to do more with less — from ad creative to shipping costs to inbox triage. You can watch each founder share their advice in our Founder tips playlist on YouTube.

Find the right plan for Google Workspace with Gemini for your business today.

Creating marketing magic

1. Your creative inspiration partner

From blank page to brand magic.

Lindsay Mullenger, CEO and Founder of Petite Keep, says their team uses Gemini as a creative ideation partner. Petite Keep is an all-women-run keepsake brand specializing in personalized, heirloom-quality fabric Trunks designed for major life milestones. With more than 40 paid social creative ads developed each month, Mullenger and the Petite Keep team use Google Workspace with Gemini to support the fast-paced creative demands of paid media. The team uses Gemini to analyze emerging trends and creative concepts, brainstorm new paid creative angles, draft and refine ad scripts and copy, and develop variations of high-performing concepts to test across campaigns. This helps Petite Keep continually introduce fresh creative into its paid social strategy while learning what messaging and concepts resonate most with customers, ultimately supporting stronger click-through and conversion rates across paid channels.

See more from Lindsay on how to create paid ads faster:

2. Your ad campaign performance analyst

Gain immediate performance clarity.

RigStrips cofounders and grade school friends Steven Graf and Zhach Pham create adventure-ready gear for the outdoors. This nimble two-person team leverages Gemini as a vital engine for both creativity and data. When it comes to evaluating creative campaign success, Steven relies on Gemini in Google Sheets to analyze ad expenditure across various channels, turning dense data into digestible insights that inform strategic next steps. By streamlining his creative workflow and analytical processes, Steven eliminates countless manual hours and significant costs, empowering the boutique startup to serve more than 150,000 global customers to date.

See more from Steven on using Sheets for data insights:

3. Your product photographer

Generate creative assets in minutes.

David Sanborn, co-founder of Kiid Coffee, a caffeine-free coffee brand for kids founded with his son, Ethan Sanborn, uses AI to streamline and scale their business. To quickly produce marketing assets, the founders use Nano Banana's AI photo editing tool to generate professional product shots in minutes, saving time and money in the process.

See more on how David uses Nano Banana for instant pics:

Optimizing your business growth

1. Your logistics optimization lead

From cost complexity to simplified shipping.

Kristen Dunning, founder of Gently Soap, faced a major operational hurdle when shipping quotes swung unpredictably at checkout, sometimes topping $20 for a single bar of soap. To solve this, Kristen turned to Gemini in Google Sheets to analyze her national historical shipping costs. Gemini helped her parse the data to evaluate her options and implement a sustainable, universal flat-rate shipping model. By using AI to streamline her business logistics, Kristen improved her margins, improved customer satisfaction by eliminating shipping charge surprises during checkout, and saved valuable time so she could focus on building her brand.

See more on how Kristen ensures happy customers with help from Gemini:

2. Your inventory investigator

Streamline your operations and administration.

Sanya Richards-Ross balances the creative and operational demands of her luxury loungewear brand, Coordinates, by using Google Workspace with Gemini as her ace in the hole. To stay on top of critical numbers, Sanya uses Gemini in Google Sheets to understand both sales velocity and industry trends, bringing those numbers together to identify which styles to prioritize for the next season.

See more on how Sanya creates new loungewear styles with back-end data:

Keeping your customers delighted

1. Your customer feedback collaborator

Turn customer feedback into meaningful insights.

Charlie Greene, founder and CEO of Remento, a family storytelling service that turns spoken memories into a printed hardcover keepsake book, hosts weekly customer feedback conversations to improve the customer experience. Using Gemini in Google Meet, the Remento team records and transcribes thousands of these customer calls. The team then uses Gemini Notebook to synthesize suggestions, identify trends, and generate audio overview podcasts to deliver shareable insights. This saves Remento's Product, Marketing, and Customer Care teams significant time on customer feedback analysis.

See more from Charlie on how Gemini helps share customer feedback broadly:

2. Your customer communications whiz

Draft the first customer care response for you to customize.

Zhach Pham, cofounder of RigStrips, has made the most of Gemini in Gmail to offer contextual and personalized drafts for incoming customer inquiries. This feature in Gmail helps draft helpful responses, so Pham can reply to his customers quickly and address their questions or concerns. Delegating the first draft to Gemini and refining the response before clicking send saves up time for Pham to spend on new ideas and innovations.

See more on how Zhach stays in touch with customers faster:

Helping you become a productivity pro

1. Your personal, proactive inbox assistant

Turbocharge your personal productivity as the founder wearing all the hats.

Hayley Cannon, founder of onewith swim, relies on Google Workspace with Gemini to streamline her daily business operations. She uses Gemini in Gmail to ask specific questions about emails, dates, deadlines, or contracts to get concrete answers. Additionally, Gemini helps Hayley retrieve visual assets and documents from Drive, ensuring everything she needs is just a prompt away. This allows her to reclaim valuable time, focusing on high-impact strategic tasks that drive her business’s growth.

See more from Hayley who uses Gemini in Gmail to be more productive:

2. Your logistics coordinator

Keep on top of your upcoming meetings.

Coordinates founder Sanya Richards-Ross also leverages Gemini in Gmail to summarize complex manufacturing and logistics emails, allowing her to stay organized and easily coordinate schedules. By helping with more analytical tasks, Gemini acts as both a strategic thought partner and logistics coordinator, helping Sanya reclaim valuable time to focus on growing her business and designing new products.

See more on how Sanya stays organized with Gemini in Gmail:

Find the right plan for Google Workspace with Gemini for your business today.