A Census Bureau working paper on the 2026 AI supplement to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey found that, among firms using AI in any business function, Sales and Marketing was the single most common use case, ahead of Strategy and Business Development at 45% and IT at 41% 52% of AI-adopting firms use it in Sales and Marketing
The U.S. Census Bureau's 2026 AI supplement to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey collected data from November 2025 to January 2026. Among firms that reported using AI in any business function, 52% used it in Sales and Marketing. This was the most common use, ahead of Strategy and Business Development at 45% and IT at 41%.
Verified 2026-09-10
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Firms mostly start with AI where it touches customers and selling, which tells you where early spending goes.
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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