Across US businesses surveyed between December 2025 and May 2026, AI use ran between 17% and 20% — and even among firms with 250 or more employees, only 37% reported using AI
The US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) collected data from US businesses between December 14, 2025, and May 3, 2026. This survey provides a biweekly, nationally representative view of AI implementation. The BTOS data showed that overall AI usage hovered between 17% and 20%, and 37% of firms with at least 250 employees reported using AI.
Verified 2026-08-01
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Most US businesses still do not use AI, so adoption has much further to go, especially among smaller firms.
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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