Harnessing AI To Reduce Paperwork Burdens: The $370 Billion Opportunity For Small Business

Everyone is talking AI these days - from regulatory professionals to the President himself. At the same time, we're discussing massive amounts of regulatory reform and how best to support small businesses in America.

Following the election, CPAC's Center for Regulatory Freedom made a number of recommendations to the incoming Trump Administration-among them was the idea of harnessing AI to assist small businesses in regulatory compliance. It was not a new idea by any means, for more than twenty years, CRF Director Andrew Langer has promoted this—a"Business Compliance One-Stop" (BCOS).

It’s a deceptively simple concept: build a digital platform where a small business owner can enter a few pieces of information and receive tailored guidance on every regulatory obligation they face. No more guesswork. No more redundant forms. No more being blindsided by obscure mandates.

For a long time, the idea remained a policy goal—desirable but just beyond reach. The technology simply wasn’t there. But now, that’s changed. Thanks to explosive advances in artificial intelligence (AI), the Business Compliance One-Stop is not only feasible—it’s inevitable. And with the right leadership and investment, it could soon become a reality.

Trump’s Pennsylvania Announcement: A Vision for AI-Driven Growth

This week, former President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail in a major way, announcing in Pennsylvania a sweeping new initiative to supercharge American innovation by marrying AI advancement with energy investment. Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Trump unveiled a $70 billion plan aimed at positioning the U.S. as the global leader in AI and energy, with Pennsylvania at the heart of this transformation.

"We’re not just building computers—we’re building the energy grid to power the future," Trump told a cheering crowd of tech workers and small business owners. The initiative includes commitments from private sector giants like Google, CoreWeave, and Blackstone, and focuses on data centers, advanced nuclear facilities, and AI infrastructure that will support innovation across every sector of the economy.

While much of the media attention has focused on the energy and industrial implications, the real potential lies in what this means for regulatory transformation, especially for small businesses.

Regulatory Compliance: The Hidden Tax

Langer has long called regulatory compliance the "hidden tax" on entrepreneurship. Back in 2006, testifying before Congress on behalf of the NFIB, he highlighted the enormous cost of paperwork faced by small firms. At the time, the average hourly cost of regulatory paperwork was just under $50. In today’s dollars, that number is approximately $78.69 per hour.

With over 30 million small businesses in America, even modest reductions in time spent on compliance can have staggering economic implications. If every small business saved just one hour per week, the cumulative direct savings would exceed $123 billion annually.

But that’s only part of the story.

The Opportunity Cost Multiplier

Patrick McLaughlin, a scholar at the Hoover Institution, has advanced a compelling argument about the opportunity cost of regulation. Building on the work of economists Dawson and Seater, McLaughlin shows that for every dollar spent on direct regulatory compliance, the economy loses an additional two dollars in opportunity cost.

That means that the real value of a Business Compliance One-Stop, if fully implemented and widely used, could exceed $370 billion per year. That’s more than 1.2% of U.S. GDP. It’s capital that could be reinvested into new equipment, employee wages, R&D, or expansion, rather than sunk into paperwork.

From Policy Dream to Technical Reality

What makes this moment different is the convergence of policy vision and technical capacity. AI is now capable of interpreting thousands of pages of regulatory text, identifying applicable requirements based on simple business inputs (e.g., industry, location, number of employees), and delivering actionable compliance roadmaps.

Articles from GovExec and the GW Regulatory Studies Center confirm what the private sector has already discovered: AI can revolutionize how we approach regulation. Instead of the old "gotcha" model—where small businesses are penalized for failing to comply with regulations they didn’t even know existed—AI can democratize access to compliance information.

In Langer’s vision, the Business Compliance One-Stop would:

• Generate customized compliance checklists for each business based on basic profile information.

• Auto-fill duplicative fields across forms used by different agencies.

• Provide plain-language explanations of legal obligations.

• Alert businesses to upcoming deadlines.

• Store a digital compliance history for future use.

  
  

Aligning with the CPAC Regulatory Reform Agenda

This AI-powered approach aligns perfectly with the broader deregulatory agenda outlined by the CPAC Foundation’s Center for Regulatory Freedom. The Center’s recent documents lay out a roadmap that includes:

• Reinstating the "1-in/2-out" rule to prevent regulatory accumulation.

• Returning to rigorous cost-benefit analyses under OMB Circular A-4.

• Expanding the Office of the National Ombudsman to grade agency compliance friendliness.

• Launching an OMB-led task force to quantify opportunity costs in regulatory analysis.

The BCOS would operationalize these principles, turning abstract reform goals into tangible improvements in the daily lives of small business owners.

What Needs to Happen Next

Realizing this vision will take coordinated action on several fronts:

1. Executive Order: The Trump administration should direct the SBA’s Office of the National Ombudsman to oversee the creation of the BCOS, with technical support from OMB and a dedicated AI team.

2. Congressional Appropriations: Lawmakers must allocate initial seed funding for BCOS development, with benchmarks for deployment and user adoption.

3. Agency Cooperation: Every federal agency must be compelled to make their compliance requirements machine-readable and API-accessible to allow full integration.

4. Small Business Engagement: The portal must be built with real-world feedback from the businesses it’s meant to serve. Regulatory Fairness Boards can play a central role.

5. Metrics and Accountability: From day one, the system must track time saved, cost avoided, and reduction in enforcement actions—all to demonstrate ROI.

A Rare Moment of Convergence

The United States stands at a rare juncture, where policy ideas long advocated by free-market reformers can finally be paired with the technological tools to bring them to life. With AI infrastructure now becoming a central part of national investment strategy, and small businesses still reeling from years of overregulation, this is the time to act.

President Trump’s Pennsylvania visit underscores the political momentum for big, bold action. The Business Compliance One-Stop isn’t just a tool for reducing red tape—it’s a linchpin of American economic renewal.

The Bottom Line

America’s small businesses don’t need another round of workshops or glossy brochures. They need clarity, efficiency, and support. The Business Compliance One-Stop can provide all three, using the power of AI to transform compliance from a burden into a tool for empowerment.

With potential direct savings of $123 billion and total opportunity cost recoveries reaching $370 billion per year, this isn’t just smart policy—it’s an essential economic strategy.

The technology is here. The case has been made. Now all we need is the political will to build it.

The future of American entrepreneurship may very well depend on it.