AI in the workplace statistics: how many businesses and workers use AI

Numbers about AI at work are everywhere, and many of them come from vendor surveys with no published method. This page collects the figures that come from official statistics or from surveys with a published method: the US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), Eurostat's survey of EU enterprises and the Pew Research Center's survey of US workers. Each figure says who was asked and when, because the answers change a lot with the question.

The short answer: about one in four US businesses (24.2%) said they used AI in some business function in the two weeks to 18 October 2026, up from 17.3% in November 2025 (Census BTOS). In the EU, 19.95% of enterprises with 10 or more employees used at least one AI technology in 2025 (Eurostat). Very few US businesses say AI has cut their headcount: 2.5% said it went down because of AI in the last six months, and 6.6% said it went up.

Key AI in the workplace statistics

Statistic	Figure	Source and period
US businesses using AI in any business function	24.2%	Census BTOS, reference period 5 to 18 Oct 2026
US businesses whose employees used generative AI for work tasks	26.8%	Census BTOS, 5 to 18 Oct 2026 (first time asked)
US businesses expecting to use AI in the next six months	27.6%	Census BTOS, 5 to 18 Oct 2026
US businesses with 250+ employees using AI	44.1%	Census BTOS, 5 to 18 Oct 2026
US businesses saying AI reduced their headcount (last 6 months)	2.5%	Census BTOS, 5 to 18 Oct 2026
EU enterprises (10+ employees) using AI	19.95%	Eurostat, 2025 (13.48% in 2024)
Large EU enterprises (250+) using AI	55.03%	Eurostat, 2025
US workers who say at least some of their work is done with AI	16%	Pew Research Center, Oct 2024

How many US businesses use AI?

The Census Bureau asks a sample of US employer businesses every two weeks whether they used AI in the last two weeks. In the survey covering 5 to 18 October 2026 (published 5 November 2026), 24.2% said yes, 61.9% said no and 13.9% did not know. The first reading on the current question, for 3 to 16 November 2025, was 17.3%, so the share has risen by about 7 points in eleven months.

Two things to know before comparing this with older figures. First, in November 2025 the Census Bureau widened the question from AI used "in producing goods or services" to AI used "in any of its business functions", after testing showed businesses using AI for hiring, accounting or project management were answering no. It started a new time series because the level jumped (Census note on the wording change). Under the old wording the last reading, for 8 to 21 September 2025, was 10.0%, and that is the kind of figure many articles still quote. Second, the 2026 questionnaire calls the technology "Super Intelligence or SI (formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI)"; the question and its examples are otherwise about the same AI uses, such as data analysis, generative AI for marketing or coding and virtual agents for customer service.

By business size

Bigger businesses use AI more. Shares for the same October 2026 survey:

Employees	Used AI in the last two weeks	Employees used generative AI for work tasks
1 to 4	22.8%	24.5%
5 to 9	23.4%	25.5%
10 to 19	25.3%	29.0%
20 to 49	29.2%	34.2%
50 to 99	33.2%	41.5%
100 to 249	40.0%	50.2%
250 or more	44.1%	55.1%

The generative AI question asks whether employees used tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude to help with any work task. In every size group more businesses said yes to that than to the general AI question, which suggests many firms do not count staff using a chatbot as "the business using AI".

Is AI reducing jobs? What businesses report

From October 2026 the BTOS also asks how the business's use of AI affected its headcount and its hiring over the last six months:

Effect of AI in the last six months	Increased	Decreased	No change	Do not know
Total number of employees	6.6%	2.5%	87.3%	3.6%
Number of new hires	2.5%	3.3%	90.2%	4.1%

These are shares of all businesses, including the ones that do not use AI, and they count businesses, not jobs. A large employer cutting hundreds of roles and a two-person shop count the same. So the table tells you how common AI-driven headcount changes are, not how many jobs were lost or created. For forecasts and job counts by occupation, see AI job loss: what the data says.

AI use in EU enterprises

Eurostat's annual survey covers enterprises with 10 or more employees and self-employed persons. In 2025, 19.95% used at least one AI technology, up 6.47 percentage points from 2024 (Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises). The shares were 17% for small enterprises, 30.36% for medium-sized ones and 55.03% for large ones.

• By country: highest in Denmark (42.03%), Finland (37.82%) and Sweden (35.04%); lowest in Romania (5.21%), Poland (8.36%) and Bulgaria (8.55%). Germany was at 25.97%, France 18.16%, Spain 20.27% and Italy 16.4%.
• By sector: information and communication 62.52%, professional, scientific and technical activities 40.43%. Every other sector was below 25%, down to 10.79% in construction.
• What it is used for: among enterprises using AI, 34.70% used it for marketing or sales and 31.05% for business administration or management.
• Which kind of AI: text mining was the most common (11.75% of all enterprises), followed by tools that generate pictures, video or audio (9.55%) and tools that generate text, speech or code (8.76%).

The EU and US figures are not directly comparable: Eurostat leaves out businesses with fewer than 10 employees, asks once a year about a list of named technologies, and its 2025 data were collected before the US question was widened.

How many workers use AI at work?

Business surveys count firms, not people. The best-documented survey of workers themselves is the Pew Research Center's, of 5,273 employed US adults in October 2024 (Pew Research Center, February 2025). In Pew's figures:

• 16% of workers said at least some of their work is done with AI, and another 25% said some of it could be, though they do not use AI much now.
• 63% said they do not use AI much or at all in their job, and 17% had not heard about AI use in the workplace.
• About one in ten used AI chatbots at work every day or a few times a week; 55% rarely or never did. Workers aged 18 to 29 were the most likely to use them at least a few times a month (23%).
• Among workers who had used chatbots for work, the most common uses were research (57%), editing written content (52%) and drafting it (47%).
• 52% said they were worried about the future impact of AI at work, 32% expected fewer job opportunities for themselves and 6% expected more.

Pew's survey is two years older than the Census data above, and business use has grown since, so treat the 16% as a floor for today rather than a current figure.

How to read AI statistics

• Check the question. "Used AI in producing goods or services" gave 10.0% of US businesses in September 2025; "used AI in any of its business functions" gave 17.3% two months later. Most of that jump is the wording, not new adoption.
• Businesses or workers? A firm counts as an AI user if one employee uses a tool for work. Share of firms and share of workers are different numbers.
• Who was asked? Surveys of large companies or tech workers give much higher figures than surveys of all businesses, because most businesses are small.
• Who paid for it? Many widely shared figures come from vendors selling AI tools and do not publish their sample or method. Prefer statistics agencies and survey organisations that do.

For what these trends mean for your own role, see AI skills to learn and is it OK to use AI at work. For the evidence on benefits and risks, see AI in the workplace: pros and cons.

Figures checked on 9 November 2026: Census BTOS national and employment size tables (data published 5 November 2026), Eurostat article with data extracted in December 2025 (next update planned for 15 December 2026) and the Pew report of 25 February 2025.