The flashiest AI stories in New York are about startups. The quieter ones are about banks, beauty companies and accounting firms that have been around for generations and are now getting more out of every employee. Their playbook works for a ten-person business too.

At a glance  
Small employers using AI 46% (New York Fed)
Small employers saying AI raised sales 31% of users
Biggest disclosed AI payoff in New York JPMorgan Chase: about $2 billion a year in savings, roughly matching its AI spending
Fastest measured cost cut Mount Sinai: contract labor costs down 7% in 30 days (vendor figure)
Best sales signal Moody’s: customers using its AI tools renew at 97%
Part of New York’s AI Gold Rush, the prequel to the Hamptons 40 Under 40

The quiet money

Nobody throws a launch party when an accounting firm automates part of an audit. No venture capitalist tweets about a hospital paying 7% less for temporary staff. But the companies doing these things are making money from AI right now, and most of them were making money long before anyone had heard of ChatGPT.

In New York’s AI Gold Rush, we argued that the city’s real AI winners are the ones collecting money, not just raising it. The startups get the headlines. This article is about the businesses that never needed a funding round: old New York names, and the small owners following in their footsteps.

How are established New York companies making money with AI?

Mostly by starting somewhere boring. The biggest wins so far come from work no customer ever sees: notes, code reviews, scheduling, document checks. Then the best companies take the time they save and spend it on selling more.

Start with the back office

Citigroup uses AI to review software code, which CEO Jane Fraser has said frees about 100,000 developer hours a week. Morgan Stanley gave its wealth advisors an AI assistant called Debrief that writes up client meeting notes and follow-up emails, saving about 30 minutes per meeting. Neither tool replaces the person. Both give that person back part of their day.

For a small business, the equivalent is the work you do after hours: invoices, follow-up emails, scheduling, summarizing calls. It’s the easiest place to start because nobody outside the company notices if the first try isn’t perfect.

Use the time to sell more

Moody’s offers a lesson in what happens next. It added AI tools to the data it sells to banks and investors, and told investors that customers using those tools renew at 97% and grow about twice as fast as the rest of its customers. About two-thirds of eligible renewals of its lending software in 2025 moved to the AI-enabled version, with what Moody’s called an average uplift of about 67%. The AI didn’t just save Moody’s money. It made its product worth more.

The Estée Lauder Companies found something similar on the product side. Its chief value chain officer, Roberto Canevari, has said AI helped double the number of product launches the company can manage in a year. More launches means more chances to sell.

Let customers help themselves

Ralph Lauren put an AI stylist, Ask Ralph, in its shopping app, and the company says styling and outfit requests account for more than half of how customers use it. For a boutique, a law practice or a medical office, the same idea is an AI assistant on the website that answers routine questions and books appointments around the clock.

Buy the tool, don’t build it

Mount Sinai didn’t invent its own staffing AI. It used a pricing tool from the staffing platform CareRev that recommends hourly rates for temporary shifts. According to CareRev, Mount Sinai’s labor costs on those shifts fell 7% within the first 30 days while shifts filled faster. A small business doesn’t need engineers. It needs to pick the right off-the-shelf product.

Answer customers faster

American Express has spent a century selling service, and it is using AI to protect that reputation rather than replace it. In its 2026 letter to shareholders, the company said its travel counselors in 19 countries use AI tools to deliver faster recommendations, its card servicing teams use an AI chatbot to resolve questions with more speed and accuracy, and AI-powered search in its US app handles about a million inquiries a month. Its engineers using AI coding tools cut development time by more than 30%. Next, Amex plans to pilot conversational AI agents to replace its old phone menus.

The lesson for a smaller business is that AI can make premium service cheaper to deliver without making it feel cheaper. A concierge medical practice, a boutique hotel or a high-end contractor can answer the routine questions instantly and save the human touch for the moments clients actually remember.

Company Founded as What AI changed
JPMorgan Chase A bank About $2 billion a year in savings, roughly matching its AI spending, per CEO Jamie Dimon
Citigroup A bank About 100,000 developer hours a week freed
Morgan Stanley An investment bank About 30 minutes saved per client meeting
Moody’s A credit rating publisher 97% renewal rate for customers using its AI tools
Estée Lauder Companies A cosmetics maker Twice as many product launches a year
Mount Sinai A hospital 7% lower temporary labor costs in 30 days (vendor figure)

What about the accountants?

Accounting may be the most old-school profession in the city, and it is moving fast. EisnerAmper, one of the largest accounting and advisory firms in the country, built an AI audit-planning agent with Microsoft and rolled out a new audit platform used by more than 1,100 of its professionals across more than 1,500 client engagements. The firm hasn’t published savings figures yet, but the direction is clear: the work that used to fill a junior accountant’s busy season is being redesigned around AI.

That matters for every small accounting practice in New York. If the largest firms can do routine work faster, their smaller competitors have to as well, or win on something else, like personal service and speed. We explore that contest in Five People and a Laptop Just Beat Your 50-Person Firm.

And the small businesses?

Here the evidence is still early, and honest reporting has to say so. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that 46% of small employers use AI tools, but only 31% of users say it has increased their sales. Most owners are experimenting. A minority are profiting.

A September 2026 survey of 500 business decision-makers by Citizens Bank shows what that profitable minority looks like. Among businesses using AI regularly across several functions, 94% had cut or eliminated at least one outside service, most often marketing (60%), data analysis and reporting (39%) and bookkeeping (38%). Yet 44% of those heavy users planned to add full-time staff, double the rate of businesses overall, and 74% expected revenue to rise the next quarter, against 54% overall. “A business owner who becomes a super user of this technology can compete like a much bigger company,” said Mark Valentino, head of business banking at Citizens.

In other words, the owners who go furthest with AI aren’t shrinking. They are bringing work in-house that they used to pay others for, and hiring people to grow. Payroll company Gusto’s study of 100,000 small firms found a similar pattern: businesses that adopted AI had slightly more employees six months later, not fewer, and the smallest firms, with one to four employees, had the highest exposure to AI of all.

That minority is who we want to find. The patterns from the big companies suggest what they have in common: they started with one specific job, measured the result, and reinvested the time in customers rather than cutting staff.

[INTERVIEWS NEEDED: two or three New York business owners, ideally from Deep Gujral’s client list, with before-and-after numbers such as revenue, clients served or hours saved.]

A 90-day AI plan for a New York business owner

The big companies took years and spent billions. A small business can borrow their playbook in three months. Here is a simple version, built from what the companies above did first.

  • Days 1 to 30: pick one job and time it. Choose a task you or your staff do every week, such as follow-up emails, proposals, appointment reminders or monthly reports. Write down how long it takes now. Try an off-the-shelf AI tool on it and time it again.
  • Month two (days 31 to 60): add a second job and a customer-facing one. Once the first task is faster, add another. Then try one thing customers see, such as an assistant that answers routine questions on your website, the way Ralph Lauren and American Express did at scale.
  • Month three (days 61 to 90): spend the time you saved. This is where most owners stop and the winners don’t. Put the saved hours into calling past clients, pitching new ones or improving service. Track one number, such as new clients, revenue per employee or response time, and compare it with where you started.

None of this requires engineers or outside investors. It requires the same discipline that built the old-school companies in the first place: measure, keep what works and reinvest in customers.

The old-school advantage

There’s a reason the oldest companies in New York may end up as some of AI’s biggest winners. They already have customers, data, reputations and cash flow. A startup has to build all four. An established business only has to add AI to what already works. The same is true of a family business on Long Island or a twenty-year-old practice in Midtown.

There is a warning in the same data. If 60% of heavy AI users are cutting outside marketing help and 38% are cutting outside bookkeeping, then the agencies and accounting practices they used to hire are the ones under pressure. The firms that survive will be the ones that use AI themselves to deliver more for less. That is the contest we explore in Five People and a Laptop Just Beat Your 50-Person Firm.

That’s the optimistic lesson of this series. You don’t need to raise money or move to Palo Alto to profit from AI. As we show in Why the Smart Money Is Leaving Palo Alto for Park Avenue, the money is coming to New York precisely because businesses like these are here.

If you run an established New York business that’s making more money because of AI, and especially if you’re under 40, we want your story and your numbers. Nominate yourself or someone you know for the Hamptons 40 Under 40.

Frequently asked questions

How are small businesses making money with AI?

The ones seeing results usually start with one routine job, such as follow-up emails, scheduling or bookkeeping, then use the saved time to serve more customers. A Gusto study of 100,000 small firms found more AI use predicted higher revenue six months later.

Which traditional New York companies are profiting from AI?

JPMorgan Chase says its AI savings roughly match its spending, about $2 billion a year. Citigroup reports about 100,000 developer hours freed each week, and Moody’s says customers using its AI tools renew at 97%.

Where should a small business start with AI?

Start with back-office work customers never see, such as notes, invoices and scheduling. Choose an off-the-shelf tool rather than building your own, measure the time saved, and reinvest it in sales and service.

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