A Census Bureau working paper using the new 2026 AI supplement to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey found that just 18% of US firms used AI in a business function during the Nov 2025-Jan 2026 survey window — but weighting that same measure by how many workers each firm employs, since larger employers adopt AI far more, pushes the adoption rate up to 32% of US employment, nearly double the unweighted 18% firm-count rate
The U.S. Census Bureau's 2026 AI supplement to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey measured AI use in US firms from November 2025 to January 2026. It found that 18% of firms used AI in a business function. When weighted by the number of employees per firm, this figure rose to 32% of US employment, reflecting higher AI adoption rates in larger firms.
Verified 2026-09-29
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Big employers use AI more than small ones, so far more workers are exposed than firm counts suggest.
More on Adoption
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index, citing McKinsey's 2025 survey, breaks down AI-agent deployment by business function. Even in IT, the function with the most agent activity, the share of organisations reporting no AI-agent use at all in 2025 was still 69% of organizations report zero AI-agent use in IT, the business function with the heaviest agent activity
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index reports that organizations' use of generative AI specifically, not just AI overall, grew sharply in 2025: the share of organizations that regularly use generative AI in at least one business function reached 79%, up from 71% in 2024
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index compared generative AI's adoption curve after its mass-market debut to that of earlier transformative technologies, and found generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years, faster than the PC or the internet
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