AI Isn’t Just a Technology Issue. It’s an Economic Development Issue.

Two AI conversations belong at the same table

One conversation is about the infrastructure and investment associated with AI: data centers, power, land, and the businesses building the technology. The other is about adoption: what existing employers, entrepreneurs, and workers can do with AI.

Both deserve attention, but they are not interchangeable. Hosting AI infrastructure does not, by itself, tell us whether a local business is better equipped to compete. And a community without a major AI investment can still work on how its businesses use the technology.

Brookings’ analysis of the geography of AI describes uneven regional starting points and argues for strategies grounded in local strengths, talent, and adoption. That is an important reminder: there is no single AI development strategy that fits every region. Read the Brookings analysis.

My view is that communities need to connect the investment conversation with the adoption conversation, without pretending they have the same objectives or measures of success.

Main Street is part of the AI economy

Consider a small service business. If it can respond more reliably, keep track of commitments, and give its team useful information at the right moment, AI may help it do more with the capacity it already has. Whether that produces growth depends on demand, execution, and what the business does with the capacity it creates.

Now consider the same issue across a local economy. Helping existing businesses develop useful capabilities is relevant to business retention and competitiveness, not just technology education. It also calls for more than a demonstration of what a chatbot can do.

The OECD’s work on SME digital transformation identifies barriers to adoption and examines the role of business associations, chambers, governments, and other partners in supporting smaller firms. The practical implication for local leaders is to ask what support businesses actually need, rather than assume access to a tool is enough. Read the OECD discussion.

This is also why the customer side matters. As businesses encounter AI-assisted research and purchasing, leaders should examine whether their information, service, and operations are ready. The question is not simply whether a company uses AI internally. It is how well it can serve customers whose expectations and ways of finding businesses may be changing.

The last mile is human

At Momentum AI, we focus on the last mile: the distance between a technology being capable of doing something and a person being able to use its output in real work.

A meeting summary is not the same as follow-through. Someone still needs to review the commitments, resolve missing information, accept responsibility, and put the next step where the team will see it. A dashboard is not a better decision unless it fits how a decision gets made.

That distinction matters for communities, too. Training attendance can show interest. It does not, on its own, show that an employer changed a process, that workers gained useful capacity, or that a business became more resilient.

For example, a local AI program could follow a small group of participating businesses from an initial problem through a supported pilot and a review of the result. A result might be improved turnaround, fewer missed handoffs, or a decision that AI is not appropriate for that task. This is a suggested approach, not a report of a measured Momentum AI program.

Data centers require their own questions

It is tempting to collapse every AI discussion into being for or against a particular development. That makes it harder to examine the actual choices.

For a proposed data center, leaders should ask who is responsible for infrastructure commitments, how benefits and costs are evaluated, which jobs and local opportunities are supported by evidence, and how the project fits the community’s priorities. The answers require project-specific information and qualified utility, planning, environmental, financial, and legal expertise.

At the same time, a community should not put its entire AI strategy on hold while that debate takes place. Helping local employers and workers understand AI is a separate task that can proceed on its own merits.

What chambers and economic-development leaders can do

The International Economic Development Council has examined AI and other technologies across functions such as investment attraction, industry analysis, and workforce development. The profession is already engaging with the issue. See IEDC’s report overview.

The next step is to make the discussion specific to the community. I would begin with five questions:

1. What is changing for our existing businesses? Start with their customers, competitive pressures, staffing, and operational challenges.
2. Who is positioned to benefit, and who faces barriers? Listen across business sizes and sectors, not only to the most technology-confident participants.
3. What can our organization usefully contribute? Convening, trusted information, training, referrals, or supported pilots may each have a place. Choose a role you can sustain.
4. What would count as a useful result? Define success beyond event attendance and software purchases. Track what changed in the work, and acknowledge what did not.
5. What needs outside expertise? Separate strategic discussion from the technical, legal, and project-specific judgments that require specialist input.

Make 2027 about capability, not just awareness

A useful community AI agenda does not have to begin with a grand declaration. It can begin with a clearer understanding of local businesses, a focused leadership conversation, and a practical first step that can be evaluated.

The important shift is to stop treating AI as a technology topic that sits apart from the work of economic development. How businesses compete, how people do their jobs, and how communities create opportunity are already connected. AI gives leaders another reason to examine those connections deliberately.

The question is not only what AI can do. It is what your businesses and community will be able to do because of it.