Homebase Brings AI to Main Street with Smart Tools That Reduce Admin Work and Save Time

As the leader in AI for small businesses, Homebase has been honored by Inc.’s 2025 Best in Business Awards for Best in AI Implementation

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Homebase, the all-in-one platform for small business payroll, team management, and hiring, has been named to the Inc. 2025 Best in Business award in the Best AI Implementation category, recognizing the company’s industry-leading approach to bringing practical, intuitive AI tools to Main Street. Since launching its first AI Assistants in June, Homebase's AI Assistants have handled nearly 2 million administrative tasks for small businesses in just a matter of months.

Homebase has introduced a new level of efficiency for Main Street businesses by taking on repetitive and time-consuming operational work. The AI tools help screen and schedule job candidates for manager interviews, suggest shift schedules or reassignments to keep teams running smoothly, and handle shift clock-outs to support more accurate payroll. Business owners and managers maintain oversight, reviewing AI recommendations and actions as needed while saving countless hours on admin tasks.

“Small businesses create jobs and community. AI is a profound enabler of small businesses, helping owners and teams reclaim time they’ve long spent on repetitive tasks,” said John Waldmann, CEO of Homebase. “This Inc. recognition validates the real impact we’re seeing by bringing the benefits of AI to Main Street businesses across North America. In 2026, our goal is to help small businesses save 100 million hours so they can reinvest that time in their people and the work that makes their businesses special.”

More than 20,000 small businesses are already using Homebase’s new AI Assistants, and over 150,000 are benefiting from the AI and automation built throughout Homebase products like scheduling, time tracking, payroll, and manager logs. Since the beta launch of Homebase's Payroll Assistant in late August, the assisted clock-out tool has supported more than 1 million employee clock-outs, and the Homebase Scheduling Assistant has facilitated nearly 400,000 shift reassignments. The Homebase Hiring Assistant beta has conducted over 20,000 AI-assisted screener interviews, demonstrating strong engagement from job candidates and real-time savings for hiring managers.

"What I love most about Homebase's Hiring Assistant is that it handles all the hard work, screening candidates, setting up interviews around my schedule, and practically automating the whole process. I don't have to do the heavy lifting anymore," said Andy Nemeth, owner of Little Ireland Coffee in Pacific, Missouri.

Homebase’s Hiring Assistant beta and the Payroll Assistant’s automated clock-out are now available to all customers. For more information on Homebase’s AI Assistants or its full suite of team management tools, visit https://www.joinhomebase.com/. To see the complete list for the Inc. Best in Business Awards, please visit inc.com/best-in-business.

About Homebase

Our mission is to make small business teams unstoppable.

Homebase is the everything app for hourly teams, with employee scheduling, time clocks, payroll, hiring, communication, HR, and more. More than 150,000 small businesses rely on Homebase to make work radically easy and give their teams superpowers. As the leader in small business team management, Homebase tracked 1+ billion hours for 3.5+ million workers last year. Homebase was named a 2024 Fast Company’s Brands That Matter, a 2025 Webby Award winner, and a 2025 Fast Company’s Most Innovative Workplaces North America winner.

Homebase also earned recognition from top reviewers, including “Best Payroll for Hourly Teams (2024)” by USA Today, “Best Payroll for Small Business (2024)” by CNN Underscored, and “Best Small Business Payroll (2025)” by U.S. News & World Report.

Homebase is based in San Francisco, Houston, Denver, and Toronto. We are backed by leading venture investors L Catterton Growth, Emerson Collective, Notable Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Bedrock Capital, and PLUS Capital.