Gusto has announced the launch of Gusto Cofounder, an AI-powered teammate designed specifically for small business owners. The new offering aims to help businesses automate operational workflows, manage payroll tasks, monitor compliance and streamline day-to-day administration through conversational AI interactions.
Unlike general-purpose AI tools, Gusto Cofounder is built with direct operational context from the Gusto platform and customer-authorized business systems. This includes access to payroll schedules, employee information, benefits data and compliance calendars, enabling the platform to immediately support operational workflows and take action on behalf of businesses.
The launch comes amid continued growth in entrepreneurship and AI adoption among small businesses. According to Gusto’s 2026 New Business Formation Report, 60% of new business owners used AI while launching their businesses in 2025, representing double the adoption rate from two years earlier.
The report also found that half of surveyed business owners said AI helped make the business formation process faster and more cost-effective.
Gusto Cofounder is designed to reduce the administrative workload associated with running a small business. The platform focuses on automating what Gusto describes as the “work before the work,” including collecting information, organizing payroll inputs, managing approvals and monitoring operational tasks.
"Small business owners are some of the most resourceful people in the world, but they're consistently stretched too thin," said Eddie Kim, Co-founder and Head of Technology at Gusto. "For most, running payroll isn't the hard part — it's everything they have to do ahead of running it. Pulling data from other systems, manipulating spreadsheets, chasing down missing inputs – the 'work before the work.' It's one of the most hidden burdens of running a business and Gusto Cofounder was built to take that off their plates entirely."
Gusto Cofounder enables business owners to interact with the platform using natural language prompts through SMS, Slack and web-based interfaces. The platform can execute operational tasks such as payroll processing, labor reporting, expense approval management and staffing oversight.
Example use cases include running payroll while flagging items requiring approval, generating recurring labor cost reports, managing expense approvals and identifying scheduling conflicts related to payroll deadlines or staffing shortages.
The platform also proactively monitors operational workflows through more than 20 pre-built automations covering onboarding, payroll administration, expense management and compliance-related tasks.
These workflows are based on operational patterns learned from more than 500,000 businesses currently using the Gusto platform.
Gusto Cofounder integrates with commonly used workplace platforms including Google Workspace, Notion and Slack, allowing businesses to incorporate AI-driven operational management into existing workflows.
The platform includes governance guardrails intended to keep business owners in control of key decisions while enabling the AI assistant to automate repetitive administrative work and surface exceptions that require attention.
"Cofounder allows you to interact with Gusto in a real human way. It feels like you're talking to a person. It's doing all of the Gusto things behind the scenes for me." — David Levin, CEO, Angry Sam Productions
The launch reflects the growing role of AI-powered automation in small business operations, particularly in areas such as payroll, HR, compliance and workforce management. As more businesses adopt AI tools to improve efficiency and reduce administrative complexity, platforms tailored to operational workflows are becoming increasingly important.
Gusto stated that small business owners can join the early access program for Cofounder through the company’s website.
About Gusto
Gusto is the leading partner for small businesses, helping them with a wide variety of critical tasks, including payroll, health benefits, tax credits, compliance, 401(k), HR, and much more. Gusto serves over 500,000 small businesses across the US, and is on a multi-decade journey to grow the small business economy with technology and heart.
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