Local businesses and tech leaders both want Pittsburgh’s AI Avenue to succeed. The question is how to get there — together.

East Liberty and Larimer small businesses want in on the local AI boom. Two years into the AI Avenue project, they’re still figuring out how to get involved.

AI Avenue leaders say they hope bringing tech businesses to the corridor benefits the neighborhoods around it. Local businesses say that while they share that goal, some are still waiting for clearer opportunities to connect. The plans outlined by developers in 2024 has yet to take shape in ways they can see.

“For the community, I’d say anyone you talk to here would say they have no knowledge,” Donna Jackson, executive director of the volunteer-led Larimer Consensus Group, which represents residents in development decisions, told Technical.ly. “We can’t assume people know what’s going on just because it’s happening in their neighborhood.”

Of the six neighborhood outreach organizations and small businesses Technical.ly spoke with, the consensus was that sustained engagement and a clear communication plan about what the groups behind the project — Walnut Capital and the AI Strike Team — hope to achieve would go a long way.