In a survey of nearly 9,000 CEOs, CFOs and senior executives across seven countries in summer 2026, 80% said they regularly use AI themselves, and their average weekly use rose to 2.1 hours of AI use a week for executives, up from 1.5 hours in winter 2026
This information comes from an NBER Working Paper, which surveyed nearly 9,000 CFOs, CEOs, and senior executives in seven countries. The survey, conducted in summer 2026, found that 80% of these executives regularly use AI. Their average weekly AI use increased from 1.5 hours in winter 2026 to 2.1 hours by mid-2026.
Verified 2026-10-23
Track with InsiderWhy it matters
When the people who set budgets use AI personally, spending tends to follow, so rising executive use points to deeper company adoption ahead.
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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