Deconstructing the Veneer of Simplicity: Co-Designing Introductory Generative AI Workshops with Local Entrepreneurs

TL;DR

This paper tackles the challenge of widening disparities in generative AI adoption among local entrepreneurs in lean economies by deploying a community-driven, four-year university–community collaboration with Community Forge. It co-designs a four-workshop series embedded in ongoing community programming, emphasizing communal exposure, actionable tasks, and wraparound technical support, complemented by 15 interviews with entrepreneurs and providers. The findings reveal that true AI literacy requires a broader set of operational skills beyond prompt engineering, the necessity of a supportive communal environment to mitigate overwhelm, and nuanced insights into how, why, and under what conditions local entrepreneurs adopt or reject AI tools. The work contributes empirical evidence for a community-centered AI onboarding model, details of the long-tail skills needed for AI literacy in entrepreneurship, and a framework for designing equitable, community-driven AI workshops with sustained support and outcomes.

Abstract

Generative AI platforms and features are permeating many aspects of work. Entrepreneurs from lean economies in particular are well positioned to outsource tasks to generative AI given limited resources. In this paper, we work to address a growing disparity in use of these technologies by building on a four-year partnership with a local entrepreneurial hub dedicated to equity in tech and entrepreneurship. Together, we co-designed an interactive workshops series aimed to onboard local entrepreneurs to generative AI platforms. Alongside four community-driven and iterative workshops with entrepreneurs across five months, we conducted interviews with 15 local entrepreneurs and community providers. We detail the importance of communal and supportive exposure to generative AI tools for local entrepreneurs, scaffolding actionable use (and supporting non-use), demystifying generative AI technologies by emphasizing entrepreneurial power, while simultaneously deconstructing the veneer of simplicity to address the many operational skills needed for successful application.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: We designed an introductory generative AI workshop series with entrepreneurs and tech providers which centered communal experience, supportive exposure, tangible and actionable exercises, and long-term technical support for maintenance and repair. Image created with Midjourney midjourney.