Industry Optimism Up, Data Needed for HR Decisions, OpenAI’s New Gadget

Hey everybody, it's Gene Marks, and welcome to this week's episode of the Paychex THRIVE Week in Review. This is where we take a few items of news that impacts your small business in mind, and we talk about it a little bit.

Before we get started, please, keep in mind, I mean, if you are really busy doing your thing, if you are up to your eyeballs in just the day-to-day operations of your business, HR should be the least of your problems, but I'm sure it's taking up a bit of your time doing HR and payroll kind of stuff.

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All right, let's get to the news, shall we? The first news comes from the National Federation of Independent Businesses. They have reported last week that their survey showed a rise in industry-specific small business optimism. Their quarterly NFIB survey found that small business optimism increased from October to January across most sectors, led by manufacturers and services firms.

Manufacturing reported the highest optimism driven by expectations for higher sales and investment in inventory, while the services sector saw the biggest increase in expected real sales. Retail optimism also rose slightly but remained the weakest. Construction's Optimism Index dipped but stayed above its historical average with job openings and hiring plans still relatively strong.

Supply chain disruptions were more broadly reported though a rising share of owners rated their businesses health as excellent or good.

And guys, that is what I am seeing out there. I speak to so many industry associations and across all different types of industry groups, and although nobody is like to the mood with their sales and their profits – when are we ever? – most people are somewhat cautiously optimistic for this year. They're looking at tax decreases. They're looking at more investments. They're looking at lowering interest rates, increasing consumer demands. Prices themselves have been coming down.

Again, this is anecdotal for me, but the NFIB survey is actually putting that into quantitative amounts, showing that small businesses, which, by the way, employ half of this country's workers and contribute more than half of this country's GDP, cautiously optimistic as we head into 2026.

All right. Well, listen, let's talk to a few HR items. Here's an interesting headline that I saw from HRgrapevine.com. ready for this? U.S. HR leaders lack the data to make effective decisions. This was new research from an organization called Hi Bob [that] showed HR leaders in the U.S. are struggling to make fair and effective decisions on pay, promotions, and development due to fragmented systems and insufficient integrated data.

About 68% of respondents say they need unified people and financial data to ensure equitable pay decisions and many report difficulty fairly assigning performance ratings on selected employees for training. The report also finds HR professionals spend hours consolidating information manually, often relying on educated guesses rather than complete data, highlighting the need for better analytics and unified technology to support strategic workforce decisions.

Hard to believe. And, by the way, these are like HR leaders at larger companies, as well, [that] don't have enough data to make the right HR decisions. You thought it was just us running small businesses, but apparently that's impacting larger companies, too.

I wouldn't have thought that in 2026 that there would be a data issue, but apparently there is. Very, very important to have a good organization chart in your company and to do compensation benchmarks among all the different levels of your employees to make sure you're in the right range and you're being competitive.

Finding that data while there's different sources that you can go to, but other than Googling around or using AI to kind of help you, it still seems to be a big issue among many corporate HR leaders.

OpenAI is now releasing or planning to release a ChatGPT gadget that could turn out to be a smart speaker with a camera attached. OpenAI is reportedly developing its first consumer hardware device, a ChatGPT powered smart speaker with an integrated camera.

The camera and onboard AI would let the speaker recognize objects and potentially use facial recognition to authorize purchases. OpenAI may also be exploring additional devices like smart glasses or a smart lamp. The push into dedicated hardware comes as part of OpenAI's broader strategy to expand AI beyond phones and laptops into everyday consumer tech.

Hey, doesn't Google already offer this? I thought they do this on your smartphone, but it looks like OpenAI is going to be having their own gadget to compete with Amazon Alexa, as well.

The bottom line is this, and I wrote about this in Forbes this past week, as a business owner, we are going to be looking to align with the AI tech company that suits us best. OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, they're all rolling out lots of different AI-based products. And that doesn't include the new companies like Claude, for example, from Anthropic, or even Grok from TwitterX. Just be aware that all these companies are working on gadgets and hardware like this, which is going to change our lives and our businesses.

So, imagine speaking into a gadget at work, having it recognize things at work, respond back to you. You can ask your questions. You can get information. It's almost like a mini-robot, but it's just a gadget for now. Ultimately, I do believe they will become robots, but that's still a few years away.

My name is Gene Marks, and you have been watching or listening to this week's episode of the Paychex THRIVE Week in Review. Besides checking out Paychex for HR help and compliance work and payroll work at www.paychex.com/meetpaychex, also consider signing up for our Paychex THRIVE newsletter. Go to paychex.com/thrive. T-H-R-I-V-E.

Again, my name is Gene Marks. Thanks for watching or listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Paychex THRIVE Week in Review. We'll see you then.

Do you have a topic or a guest that you would like to hear on THRIVE? Please let us know. Visit payx.me/thrivetopics and send us your ideas or matters of interest. Also, if your business is looking to simplify your HR payroll benefits or insurance services, see how Paychex can help. Visit the resource hub at paychex.com/worx. That's W-O-R-X. Paychex can help manage those complexities while you focus on all the ways you want your business to thrive.

I'm your host, Gene Marks, and thanks for joining us.

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