Between December 2025 and May 2026, 17 to 20 percent of U.S. businesses reported using artificial intelligence to help produce their goods or services, according to Census Bureau survey data. Adoption tracks closely with size: 37 percent at firms with 250 or more employees, but under 20 percent at firms with four or fewer.
How many small businesses use AI and advanced technology in 2026?
The Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey is the only measure that covers the whole business population rather than a self-selected panel. From December 14, 2025 through May 3, 2026, it found AI use running between 17 and 20 percent of U.S. businesses, with 20 to 23 percent expecting to use AI within the following six months. Use grew across firm sizes and sectors over that window.
The size gradient is the clearest finding. 37 percent of firms with 250 or more employees reported using AI, and 32 percent of those with 100 to 249. Among firms with four or fewer employees, use stayed below 20 percent and barely moved over those five months. The constraint for the smallest firms is rarely interest — it is that nobody has spare hours to evaluate, configure, and train on a new tool while also doing the work.
Why do adoption estimates range from 20 percent to nearly 100 percent?
Because the surveys ask different questions, and both answers are true. The Census measure asks whether a business uses AI in producing goods or services — a deliberate, operational test that a solo contractor drafting an occasional email with a chatbot would not meet. Survey panels ask whether owners use AI-enabled tools at all, and by that broader definition adoption is nearly universal, because AI now sits inside ordinary accounting, scheduling, and marketing software whether the owner thinks of it as AI or not.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce study with Teneo Research found 99 percent of small businesses use at least one technology platform and 81 percent planned to increase their use of those platforms. So when you see wildly different AI adoption numbers, check the definition before concluding the data conflicts. For the AI-specific figures and how they have moved, see our breakdown of AI adoption among small businesses.
Which industries are adopting technology fastest?
Sector matters almost as much as size. As of May 2026, Census data put AI use at 39.7 percent in the information sector and 33.9 percent in finance and insurance — both the highest — against just 14 percent in retail trade, the lowest of the major sectors. Information sector firms expected to reach about 42 percent within six months.
The pattern follows what the work is made of. Where the product is already text, code, images, or analysis, AI plugs directly into production. Where the work is physical — moving inventory, serving customers, running a job site — the gains come from scheduling, forecasting, and payments software rather than from AI writing the product, and the payback is harder to see on a thin margin. That does not mean retail and trades are behind; it means their technology spending goes into point-of-sale, routing, and inventory systems that these AI-specific questions do not capture.
How owners pay for a technology upgrade
Technology spending splits into two shapes that want different funding. Hardware — point-of-sale terminals, kitchen display systems, tablets, diagnostic tools, servers — is an asset with a multi-year life, which is what equipment financing exists for. Software, subscriptions, migration, and training are operating costs with a faster payback, better matched to working capital than to a long-term note. The discipline in both cases is the same: name the hours or dollars the tool is supposed to return before you sign for it. Our guide to business funding to upgrade your technology works through the sizing.
The Broker Shop is a funding broker, not a funder — we put more than 50 lenders in competition for your application rather than lending money ourselves. One two-minute application reaches the funders whose guidelines you meet, so you can compare structures across the available funding options and pick the one whose payment schedule matches your payback. It is free to apply, and checking your options won't affect your credit score.
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One 2-minute application is matched to the funders whose guidelines you meet. It's free, and checking your options won't affect your credit score.
See What I Qualify For →The bottom line: Roughly one in five U.S. businesses now uses AI in production, adoption nearly doubles between the smallest firms and those with 250 or more employees, and the practical question for an owner is not whether to adopt but whether a specific tool returns more than its monthly cost.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau — Large Firms With at Least 20 Employees Biggest AI Users (BTOS) · U.S. Census Bureau — Business Trends and Outlook Survey · U.S. Chamber of Commerce with Teneo Research — Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business
Found these figures useful? You are welcome to cite or link to this page. Suggested attribution: “Small Business Technology Adoption in 2026,” The Broker Shop — thebrokershopinc.com/small-business-technology-adoption-2026.html. Every figure links to its original primary source.