Tariff Refunds, Hiring Is Steady, Financial Forecast on Agentic AI Commerce

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 in the news, and we talk about them a little bit to see how they impact both your small business and mine.

Before we get to that news, just a quick reminder if you are busy and up to your eyeballs in things to do, obviously, you don't want to be spending your time doing things that are wasting your time. That is why you should consider using paychecks to outsource your HR and payroll needs. They can take care a lot of the stuff that you're doing right now and probably do a better job at it, as well.

So, my recommendation to you is to talk to somebody from Paychex and find out all the services that they can provide for both your HR and your payroll needs. Go to paychex.com/meetpaychex. That's P-A-Y-C-H-E-X dot-com forward slash M-E-E-T P-A-Y-C-H-E-X. Okay, let's get to the stories.

And my first story is actually based on a column I just wrote this last Sunday about the tariff refunds that are going on. The piece that I wrote was in The Guardian, and here's the takeaway. Tariff refunds are actually happening everyone, and businesses like yours should be paying attention. So, let me read to you the summation of this story from the Supreme Court's ruling that many Trump-era tariffs were imposed illegally.

The federal government has begun processing refunds for businesses that paid the fees. Roughly 330,000 importers paid more than $166 billion under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and many are now eligible for reimbursement.

My column explained the process that's very operational, although it's complicated. Businesses must work through the same customs broker that originally filed your import paperwork, and claims are being processed through the government's ACE Secure Data portal. I interviewed one woman from a supply chain solutions business who is also a customs broker. She says that the system does have its glitches, but it is functioning and they're telling their customers that they can get their refunds in anywhere from 60 to 90 days.

Now, be careful if you're getting a tax refund everyone, because remember last year when you did your taxes and you paid those refunds, you took a deduction for that, didn't you, which reduced your income? Well, if you get money back this year, that's gonna create income this year, so you want to make sure that you're talking to your accountant and you're putting away estimated taxes for it.

In addition to going after your own refunds if you think that they are significant enough, you might want to talk to UPS, FedEx, and DHL because they – the big shippers – have all come out publicly saying that they are intending to pass refunds back to their customers. So, if you rely on any one of those big three shippers, you definitely want to go back to them, as well.

And, in the end, my overall advice for you is if you do think that your freight costs or your shipping costs or your products were impacted by refunds, you do want to go back to the original person that you bought that stuff from. Only those people can apply for refunds through their importer, but if they know that it's important to you and significant enough, they may do it on your behalf. There might be an additional fee involved, but hey, listen, you know, something, a percentage of something is better than a percentage of nothing. So, it might be worthwhile for you to do that.

The takeaway is, is that refunds are happening, and even though there was a lot of the headaches that going on with the tariffs, know, the Supreme Court found these tariffs to be illegal. There's a lot of refunds that have to do with – there was some thought, and I thought recently, you know, a few weeks ago that this was never going to happen. Of course, I was wrong. It's happening. So, talk to your customs broker about it. Check out the Ace Secure Data portal, which is where you can find that's the customs department. That's where you can find more information on getting a refund potentially or refunds for the tariffs that you have spent.

The second news comes from Paychex. Of course, their monthly Small Business Employment Watch was released with good news about small business hiring and the economy. According to Paychex, U.S. small business hiring remained relatively steady entering 2026. The jobs index was modest but stable – hiring activity among businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Hourly earnings growth still stayed below 3%, which is a concern to me, but according to the report, it indicates that while small businesses are still hiring, owners remain cautious amid ongoing economic uncertainty, interest rate concerns, and uneven consumer demand. Recent updates also show job growth improved slightly for the second consecutive month in April, with gains in weekly hours worked, as well.

Overall, the data suggests that small business labor market is not contracting sharply, but it is operating in a slower growth environment compared to the post-pandemic hiring surge. So, good news from Paychex, and I think that that should not come as surprise to most of us, as well. I have not met many clients that are cutting back on their hiring. Obviously, we're all being more cautious, but the number of open jobs out there – the Labor Department just released their numbers showing that unemployment rate had stayed steady and, in fact, job growth was still pretty strong in April and job openings remained about the same.

So, businesses continue to hire. It's not an explosive thing, but it's still moderate and steady, and that's good news. And I'm hoping that your business is also the same way.

All right. Our last story is related to AI. So, this is our AI News of the Week. The news is about agentic commerce, which could be a one-trillion-dollar retail market by 2030. This comes from RetailDive is the name of the site, and here's the story. Retailers and technology firms are increasingly betting on agentic commerce, where AI-powered digital assistants shop, compare products, place orders, and manage purchasing decisions for consumers. Now, by the way, for consumers, also for small businesses.

According to projections referenced in the article, agent commerce could drive as much as a trillion dollars in U.S. retail activity by 2030. The trend builds on the rapid adoption of generative AI and large language models integrated into shopping platforms and search tools. Retailers are preparing for a future where AI agents rather than humans increasingly influence product discovery and purchasing decisions. Companies are investing in structured product data, AI-friendly search optimization, and automated transaction systems so their products can be surfaced and selected by AI assistance.

The article notes that major technology companies and e-commerce platforms are already integrating transactional capabilities into AI tools, potentially reshaping digital advertising, online search, customer loyalty, and how brands compete for visibility in retail marketplaces.

This is a fascinating story if you're in retail or even if you or not, and here's the reason why. Agents themselves, and we are in 2026, they're projecting a trillion dollars by 2030 not that far away, but just picture what this article is telling us. Instead of people in our companies going out to purchase, I don't know, office supplies or materials or travel or new uniforms or anything else that we purchase for our businesses – we normally have like what the office manager or purchasing manager, somebody in accounts payable that they're going out there and they're making that purchase – in the next few years, we're to be setting up agents. These agents will be supplied by our accounting systems or independently, and we'll be telling the agents go out and buy bathroom supplies for our company bathrooms. We need these types of supplies. Find the best price, place the order, pay for it with this credit card, and have it shipped to our company address.

And then what the agents will do is they're just gonna go out and they're gonna troll the internet and find the best deal. And if you're a retailer, you need to be able to be found by these agents. Your advertising, your SEO, your website is gonna have to change to be geared for an agent looking at it, not necessarily a human being looking at it.

So, project yourself ahead. The agents are going to be doing the shopping. The agents are going to be making the decision and paying the bills, and the humans and the small businesses will be benefiting from that and from those time savings, but the people that are selling these products, well, you need to make sure that you are adapting to the fact that your customer is going to change. It is not going to be a human that's looking at a pretty picture on your website. It's going to be a bot that might not really care about that pretty picture and instead compare about the prices and services that your company is offering for what you're charging.

So, agents are going to be taking over retail and e-commerce. They're going to be the buyers going forward, and I think that we as small business owners, particularly if you're a retailer, you're an e-commerce platform, you better be prepared for that change because it is coming and it is coming soon.

My name is Gene Marks, and you have been watching and or listening to this week's episode of the Paychex THRIVE Week in Review. Please subscribe to our Paychex channel on YouTube or to our podcast channels on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you're listening to this. That way you'll stay up to date on all the most recent news that impacts your small business.

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Again, my name is Gene Marks. Thanks again for watching or listening. We'll see you next week with the Paychex THRIVE Weekend Review. Take care.

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

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