Towards Designing for Resilience: Community-Centered Deployment of an AI Business Planning Tool in a Small Business Center
For entrepreneurs in resource-constrained communities, this work provides design implications for AI tools that support resilience through collective literacy, though the findings are preliminary and context-specific.
This paper presents the community-centered design and deployment of BizChat, an AI business planning tool, in a feminist makerspace. Findings from log data (N=30) and interviews (N=10) show that while the tool lowered barriers to accessing capital by translating ideas into business language, it raised concerns about undermining sensemaking, with peer support helping navigate this tension.
Entrepreneurs in resource-constrained communities often lack time and support to translate ideas into actionable business plans. While generative AI promises assistance, most systems assume high digital literacy and overlook community infrastructures that shape adoption. We report on the community-centered design and deployment of BizChat, an AI-powered business planning tool, introduced across four workshops at a feminist makerspace in Pittsburgh. Through log data (N=30) and interviews (N=10), we examine how entrepreneurs build resilience through collective AI literacy development-encompassing adoption, adaptation, and refusal of AI. Our findings reveal that while BizChat lowered barriers to accessing capital by translating ideas into "business language," this ease raised questions about whether instant AI outputs undermine sensemaking essential to planning. We show how peer support helped entrepreneurs navigate this tension. We contribute design implications, including productive friction, communal scaffolds, and co-optability, for strengthening resilience amid technological change.