H&R Block has named the four winners of its 2026 Fund Her Future programme, and the survey behind the announcement draws a sharp women founders AI trust line. Across 6,379 women founder applicants, founders said they will happily let AI handle everyday tasks, but they refuse to trust it alone with their money.

The four winners, Kate H. of Vermont, Yasmine B. of California, DeJanae P. of Texas and Harleen C. of New York, were selected from more than 6,000 applicants. Each receives a $45,000 grant and a full year of small business services from H&R Block experts. Beyond the four recipients, every applicant has been offered a $1,000 voucher toward H&R Block small business services, worth more than $6.3 million in total.

Kate H. founded BirdieBlue, which upcycles retired ski and snowboard gear into bags and accessories. Yasmine B. founded Hayati Goods, a modern Arabic food brand built around Palestinian za’atar spice blends. DeJanae P. founded Dotted, offering non-toxic feminine care products and a reproductive health app. Harleen C. founded Harleen Kauer, a size-inclusive, ethically produced Indo-Western fashion brand.

The women founders AI trust line

The survey numbers explain the line. 79% of the founders are already using or testing AI, and 77% expect it to help their business. But trust stops at the money. Founders said they trust AI for customer-facing tasks, not for financial projects, and just 7% trust AI for payroll. The survey was collected by Hello Alice from the programme’s applicants, so it reflects this group of founders rather than a random sample of all women founders.

That caution makes sense once you see how these founders started. 54% launched entirely on their own, with no mentor and no support network. Only 12% had a formal mentor when launching. One in five had no network of other entrepreneurs at all, and 15% did not know how to find a mentor. The gap is structural, not a lack of desire.

Capital is the sharpest edge. 79% want access to capital and funding connections, the single most requested form of support, and 62% want access to financial experts such as tax professionals and bookkeepers. Women receive just 2% of global venture funding, according to the World Economic Forum, cited in the release. Two thirds of the founders reported prior-year revenue under $100,000, and one third are pre-revenue or earning less than $25,000, even as 64% say their business is growing.

The AI industry keeps selling a future where software runs the whole business, and calls human oversight friction. These founders call it the business. When you have built with almost no support, you do not hand the vault keys to a chatbot. Every fully automated pitch that removes the human from money decisions is solving a problem founders do not have.

“Female small-business owners are growing, but too many are doing it without the capital, mentorship, and financial expertise they need to truly thrive,” said John Thompson, vice president of financial services and small business at H&R Block. “We go beyond funding, by providing the human support and professional services our research shows they want.”

What founders should do

Use AI to buy back hours. Keep a human in every money decision. And invest in one real mentor relationship before the next tool subscription. That order matters: tools first, trust second, and never the other way round.

The founders who survive will not be the ones with the most automation. They will be the ones who know exactly what to automate and what never to hand over. The announcement lands during National Women’s Small Business Month, and its lesson lasts longer than the month: AI is a tool, not a CFO.

Read more in our Women Founders & Leaders hub, and in related CEO Medium stories: Elizabeth Iorns Is Bringing Human Medicine to Dogs and Cats and Scaling a Product-Based Business Just Got Easier with The Product Boss.