AI News Now for November 6, 2026

Small business funding hit a record, holiday shoppers are ready to spend, and AI agents are now making phone calls and booking rides. Here’s just some of what is happening in AI News Now…

SBA Achieves Record $100 Billion in Support for Small Businesses Despite Shutdown – The Small Business Administration delivered $100 billion in capital and support in fiscal year 2026, even with a 43-day federal shutdown that froze lending for nearly two months. It guaranteed 62,205 loans under the 7(a) and 504 programs, worth $39.5 billion, and manufacturing was one of the sectors that received the most support, with 11,790 loans totaling $7 billion. A new 90% Made in America Guarantee backed 149 loans worth nearly $300 million for domestic manufacturing.

Small Businesses Risk Losing Holiday Shoppers Due to Engagement Gap – A Constant Contact survey of more than 1,800 small business owners found over three-quarters are confident about hitting holiday revenue goals, yet 70% have no plan to invite new holiday shoppers to join an email list or loyalty program. More than 68% plan to use AI this season, mostly to make marketing content and product images and to predict inventory demand, but only 39% plan to follow up with new customers after the holidays. The fix costs little: capture the contact at checkout, then send one real follow-up in January.

Adobe Survey Finds 59% of Shoppers Would Switch Brands for AI Picks – Adobe surveyed 1,011 U.S. consumers who use AI assistants to research purchases, and 59% said they would try an unfamiliar brand over their preferred one if an AI assistant recommended it. Another 62% said they already bought from brands they would not have considered, because AI suggested them. The catch is accuracy: 59% lose trust in a brand when AI gives wrong information about it, so keep prices, specs, and stock levels current everywhere your products appear online.

AI agents can now make your phone calls – SpaceXSI’s Grok Bot can now place phone calls for paid users, sitting on hold, booking appointments, and negotiating bills on U.S. numbers, with a live transcript and a message to the user when a question comes up that it cannot answer. The terms make the user the caller of record and solely responsible for the call and for following phone laws. For a small shop, the near-term use is the boring call you keep putting off, not customer calls, and you stay responsible for what the bot says.

Almost no one uses AI agents to book their Uber, company says – Uber told investors that only four rides were ordered through an AI agent during its busiest week in October, the week of Halloween, out of about 320 million trips and orders that week. Uber Eats saw only 500 agent-placed orders in the same week. Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi called traction very limited, and noted booking a ride in the app takes about 50 seconds, so an agent saves almost no time. Do not rebuild ordering or booking around agents yet, but keep watching which platforms welcome them.

AI Agent Cost: How to Tell What the Work Is Worth – Elon Musk said the cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue, after a customer ran through an allowance with four days left before reset. Yet the same agent saved xAI $14,220 in one procurement review by finding 43 paid software seats with no activity in 90 days. The lesson for a small owner is to track three separate numbers: what the work costs to run, what you pay for it, and what the finished work is worth to you.

Americans overwhelmingly voted against data centers in the midterms – Voters backed limits on data centers in 33 of 45 local ballot measures across 10 states, with another six projected to pass, and only Harwood, North Dakota voted the other way. In Ohio, where 20 measures were on ballots, restrictions won or are projected to win in every case, with outright bans passing by 76 and 77 percent in Urbana and Hubbard. An NBC exit poll found 56 percent of voters said AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor in their vote for Congress, which points to higher power costs and tighter rules ahead for AI services.

OpenAI released a new cybersecurity model. Is that enough? – OpenAI announced ChatGPT Cyber, a model built for cybersecurity work, for the top tier of its Daybreak program, after the same model scanned the Linux kernel and found 948 potential issues and found 81 new vulnerabilities in Firefox. OpenAI also announced a $1 billion initiative to support cybersecurity professionals working on critical infrastructure such as the power grid and water systems. The gap is real: only thousands of defenders are in the Daybreak program, and small businesses should still patch promptly and keep backups, since AI is finding flaws faster than before.

Google Releases Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash: 15-Second AI Video at $0.07 per Second – Google released Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, which makes and edits video clips up to 15 seconds long with audio, at $0.07 per second of 720p video, about $1.05 for a full 15-second clip. That is 30% cheaper than the prior version, and you can edit a clip turn by turn, swapping a product, background, or lighting, instead of starting over. For a small business, a short product clip or ad now costs about a dollar to generate, though Google has published no benchmark scores for this version yet.

How to Turn a Messy Voice Recording Into a Plan With AI – Record a few minutes of talking through what is on your mind, upload the audio to Gemini, and ask it to sort what you said into tasks, ideas, and worries, then suggest up to three small next steps. The guide gives a copy-ready prompt that tells the AI not to invent commitments, deadlines, or decisions you did not make. Try it on a Monday morning shop walk-through or a Friday job list, and leave passwords, financial details, and private information about other people out of the recording.

How to STOP Money Scarcity Thoughts…

Enjoy the day!

Matthew Doehring

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