AI may be helping more people start their own businesses, but without many employees

The startup era is back, but this time founders are using AI to avoid one of their biggest early costs—hiring employees. 

A report this week by the Bank of America Institute found the number of “high propensity businesses,” or businesses the Census Bureau identifies as likely to hire employees, jumped by 15.1% year over year in January. Meanwhile, the number of business applications with explicit plans to hire employees fell by 4.4%.

The trend comes amid the record-high investment...