AI speeds launch of Here Now Health

Here Now Health, a small business providing mental health counseling for children entering the foster system, has expanded to 16 employees. The organization is certified in three states to deliver Medicaid-funded services, illustrating how a young company has scaled its operations within a regulated segment of healthcare.

Founder Michelle Turner describes artificial intelligence tools as central to this rapid progress. She used AI to “school” herself in startup culture, develop a business plan and fine-tune a presentation aimed at early-stage investors, relying on software to accelerate tasks that might otherwise require extensive training or outside consultants.

Turner characterizes her experience with AI as “like going to a master’s level class every day from the robot,” calling it her “startup advisor.” She credits these tools with helping her translate an idea for a specialized counseling service into a structured business strategy and investor-ready pitch materials.

At the same time, she highlights the hurdles she perceived in raising venture capital. Turner notes that “a mom of six kids who’s a first-time founder, who’s a sole female founder, should not be able to raise (venture capital). I don’t have an MBA,” underscoring the demographic and credential barriers that can confront new entrepreneurs, even as technology makes certain operational steps easier.

Economists and industry figures quoted in the report link stories like Here Now Health’s to a broader rise in new business formations. Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management (APO), attributes a recent upturn in company creation to AI, saying it is “dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of launching a company.”

Another industry voice, identified as Bailey, says that tasks which previously took too much time or were too expensive have become far more accessible. Bailey states that “the price to access has fallen close to zero,” and that AI is “empowering entrepreneurs to scale faster and hire people,” even when many of those firms remain traditional companies simply using AI to deliver services more quickly and at lower cost.

The report places these developments within a larger discussion about how AI is reshaping markets. Jean Boivin, head of the BlackRock Investment Institute, describes competing narratives around AI in terms of “scarcity versus abundance,” reflecting tension between concerns over short-term pressures and expectations of longer-term productivity gains.

Boivin notes that markets are contending with both cost pressures associated with adopting new technologies and the potential for significant breakthroughs. The experience of Here Now Health is presented as one example of how AI can already influence company formation and expansion, even as the full macroeconomic impact of the technology continues to be debated.