The AI Center of Excellence (AICOE) has been selected to participate in the first New York cohort of Anthropic’s Claude SMB Trainer Program, an initiative designed to equip trusted community organizations to provide hands-on artificial intelligence training to small and medium-sized businesses.

AICOE founder Joe Hamilton will travel to New York City on Sept. 10 for an in-person training led by the Anthropic team. The program teaches participating organizations how to deliver Anthropic’s Claude SMB Workshop independently in their own communities.

The program grew out of Anthropic’s national Claude SMB Workshop tour. According to Anthropic, the workshops visited 10 U.S. cities this spring, were oversubscribed by three to five times capacity and received an average participant rating of 9.1 out of 10.

Anthropic is now extending that model through organizations including regional AI hubs, community foundations, chambers of commerce, community colleges and economic development organizations. Participants receive facilitator training and, after completing an online course and assessment, can become Approved Claude SMB Trainers with access to Anthropic’s complete workshop toolkit.

For AICOE, the program provides another practical resource for its work expanding AI capacity across the Tampa Bay region.

“Small businesses have enormous opportunities to use AI, but many owners simply need someone to help them get started,” Hamilton said. “This program gives us a proven curriculum and direct training from Anthropic that we can bring home and put to work in our community.”

Approved organizations commit to providing at least five free SMB workshops by the end of 2026. Anthropic provides the training materials and keeps the curriculum current. Workshop attendees also receive one month of Claude Max at no cost.

The initiative complements Anthropic’s broader push into small-business AI. The company launched Claude for Small Business in May, integrating Claude with tools commonly used by small businesses including QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

AICOE plans to use the training to expand the practical AI education available to businesses and organizations in St. Petersburg and throughout Tampa Bay.

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