New Orleans entrepreneurs have embraced artificial intelligence more than their counterparts nationwide, but they are being cautious about spending money on office space and salaries.
Those are some of the takeaways from the 2025 Greater New Orleans Startup Report, produced by Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business.
The seventh annual report, released Thursday, is based on a survey of more than 120 startup businesses in a 10-parish region in south Louisiana.
This year’s edition shows that 77% of respondents think AI will have a major long-term effect on their business, and 67% believe it represents their biggest opportunity. Of those already using the tools, 85% had good things to say about them, noting productivity gains, expanded market share and cost savings.
“Historically speaking, when trends happen, we’re not usually the first movers,” said Rob Lalka, a Tulane business professor who helped create the GNO Startup Report in 2019. “We’re maybe middle of the pack or later, but with AI, there are more people here using it, and we are trying to really harness its tools to get a competitive advantage.”
Rob Lalka
A separate report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports Tulane’s findings, ranking Louisiana seventh in the nation for adoption of generative AI, a category of artificial intelligence capable of creating text, images, audio, video and other original content. That report put adoption among the state’s small businesses at 65%, topping the 58% national average.
Tulane’s report shows that high-growth startups — usually tech-based ventures that aim to scale quickly and disrupt industries — gained more from AI than traditional small businesses.
In other categories, the report reveals mixed feelings among entrepreneurs about hiring and acquisition of office space.
A slight majority of companies said they plan to add employees over the next year, while 22% say they do not, which is the highest percentage in the report’s history. High-growth companies in particular are more bullish about hiring than others, and construction startups reported the most recent hiring while food and beverage respondents described net employee losses.
Survey respondents said they are mostly “bootstrapping” — using personal finances or taking on credit card debt — to launch their businesses. The next most common sources of funding, include friends and family, angel investors, convertible debt and venture capital.
The top categories of surveyed companies are software, professional services, food and beverage, media and health care. Founders answered additional questions about demographics, revenue and office space.
Going statewide
The startup report’s authors have announced plans to expand statewide next year.
Tulane’s Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, run by Lalka, plans to partner with Louisiana Innovation, a division of the state’s economic development agency, to build a comprehensive snapshot of startup activity in Louisiana.
“What began as a local effort to understand our startup landscape will now serve our entire state,” said Paulo Goes, dean of Tulane’s business school, in a prepared statement. “Louisiana Innovation’s decision to adopt our approach as the foundation for statewide innovation measurement validates the comprehensive system we’ve built — one that captures not just data, but the full story of entrepreneurial growth.”
The survey, which will be renamed the Louisiana Startup Report, will provide parish-by-parish data designed to help stakeholders track regional trends, emerging innovation clusters, capital gaps, sector momentum and deal sizes.
The expansion of the startup report, and the creation of the Louisiana Innovation office — nicknamed “LA.IO” — are two of the latest efforts to formalize the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and to use information to promote its growth.
Earlier this month, a separate group called the NOLA Entrepreneurship Council met for the first time. The committee is a “working group that will take up issues, from policy to funding to quality of life, that are critical to the success of our innovation ecosystem,” according to Michael Hecht, president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc., the region’s economic development nonprofit.
In 2022, GNO Inc. created Startup NOLA, an initiative that produces online heat maps of entrepreneurial activity, a news page about startups and an events calendar.
All of these efforts come four years after a handful of high-profile acquisitions of Louisiana-based tech startups brought an infusion of cash into the region and proved that Louisiana, despite being far from the country’s coastal tech hubs, was able to produce some winners of its own.
The architects of the expanded Louisiana startup report hope to gather more data to help tell the state’s story, spark more activity and boost its rankings.
“We’re now at the stage where measuring our progress is critical to strengthen the ecosystem,” said Tim Williamson, who helped launch the city’s startup scene 25 years ago by co-founding The Idea Village, the city’s most prominent business accelerator. “The GNO Startup Report provides insight to what’s working what’s not and where we need to spend more time and energy.”