# Small business AI and automation statistics (2026)

Updated 10 Nov 2026. 47 statistics, each with its source and date. Canonical page: https://infinioffice.com/automation-statistics/

## The 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index

InfiniOffice's own count across 112 hand-checked listings (46 hosted products, 38 open-source tools, 16 agent skills and MCP servers, 12 recipes), last verified 25 Oct 2026. Curated listings only; a hand-picked directory, not a random sample.

- The 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index found that **79%** of 112 hand-checked automation tools and recipes for small businesses can be started without paying: they are open source, free, or have a free plan.
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index found that **50%** of 46 hosted automation products have no free plan, and 39% offer one.
- According to the 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index, **72%** of hosted automation products can be set up without technical skills, against none of the 38 open-source tools.
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index rated **45%** of open-source automation tools as needing a developer to set up; across all 112 listings the figure is 41%.
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index found at least three open-source alternatives for **41 of 46** hosted products (89%) in the same problem area.
- In the 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index, open-source tools outnumber hosted products in **4 of 10** small business problem areas, and every problem area has at least 2 open-source options.
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index found that **9 of 12** step-by-step automation recipes can be built entirely from tools that are open source, free or have a free plan.
- A typical automation recipe in the 2026 InfiniOffice Automation Index chains **3** tools in 3.5 steps.

## The small business AI gap: AI use by company size

InfiniOffice analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau Business Trends and Outlook Survey (file published 5 Nov 2026). Size-class percentages are the Census Bureau's; the gap, ratio and averages are InfiniOffice's.

- The 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data found that **24.3%** of businesses with 1 to 4 employees used AI in the two weeks of 21 Sep to 4 Oct 2026, against 43.6% of businesses with 250 or more employees.
- According to the 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis, the largest U.S. businesses are **1.8 times** as likely to use AI as the smallest: a gap of 19.3 percentage points in the two weeks of 21 Sep to 4 Oct 2026.
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis found the AI-use gap between the smallest and largest U.S. businesses widened from **12.8 to 17.3 percentage points** in under a year (average of Nov 2025 to Jan 2026, against average of Jul to Oct 2026).
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis found AI use rose in every business size class over that period: by **5.6 points** for businesses with 1 to 4 employees (to 23.3%) and by 10.1 points for those with 250 or more (to 40.6%).
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis found the lowest AI use is not at the very smallest firms: businesses with 5 to 9 employees averaged **21.1%** in Jul to Oct 2026, below the 23.3% of businesses with 1 to 4 employees.
- According to the 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis, **28.1%** of U.S. businesses with 1 to 4 employees expect to use AI in the next six months, against 51.4% of businesses with 250 or more.
- The 2026 InfiniOffice Small Business AI Gap analysis found employees used generative AI for work at **24.5%** of U.S. businesses with 1 to 4 employees and at 55.1% of businesses with 250 or more, in the two weeks of 5 to 18 Oct 2026 (the first survey to ask).

## How many small businesses use AI?

- **19.8%** of U.S. businesses reported using AI in a business function as of 3 May 2026, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 37% of firms with at least 250 employees, and less than 20% of firms with four or fewer. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Large Firms With at Least 20 Employees Biggest AI Users, May 2026. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/05/ai-use-businesses.html) Note: Counts use in the last two weeks, so it is a stricter test than "do you use AI".
- **24%** of U.S. small business owners used AI tools in their business in 2025, ranging from 21% of firms with 1 to 9 employees to 48% of firms with 50 or more, according to the NFIB Research Center. (Source: NFIB Research Center, Small Business and Technology, June 2025. https://www.nfib.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/2025-NFIB-Technology-Survey.pdf) Note: A survey of NFIB members; the largest size group is a small number of firms.
- **46%** of U.S. small employer firms said their business or employees were using AI for work in late 2025, and a further 15% planned to start within 12 months, according to the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey. (Source: Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, March 2026. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/2026-report-on-employer-firms) Note: A weighted convenience sample; the AI questions were optional.
- **66%** of U.S. small businesses used AI in 2026, up from 58% in 2025 and 23% in 2023, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business (2026), October 2026. https://www.uschamber.com/technology/2026-empowering-small-business-report) Note: Self-reported, from a business advocacy group's online survey.
- **76%** of small business owners surveyed by Goldman Sachs in early 2026 said they use AI, but only 14% said AI is fully embedded in their core operations. (Source: Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices, Survey: Small Businesses Embrace AI, But Need Training and Support to Fully Harness It, March 2026. https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/press-releases/2026/small-businesses-embrace-ai-but-need-training-and-support-to-fully-harness-it) Note: Programme participants, not a representative sample of all small businesses.
- **83%** of small business owners surveyed by Chase in July 2026 said they use AI, including AI features built into other software, while about 16% of Chase small businesses paid for AI tools on a Chase business card that month. (Source: JPMorganChase, Chase small business pulse report, August 2026, August 2026. https://media.chase.com/content/dam/chase/media-center/intelligence/sb-pulse-aug-2026.pdf) Note: The survey includes Chase and non-Chase customers; the card figure covers Chase business cards only.

## Does AI improve small business results? What owners report

- **71%** of U.S. small employer firms using AI said it increased productivity, 39% said it improved the quality of their goods and services, and 31% reported higher sales, according to the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey. (Source: Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, March 2026. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/2026-report-on-employer-firms)
- Just **7%** of U.S. small employer firms that use AI had fully integrated it into their business in late 2025; about half were still experimenting, according to the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey. (Source: Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, March 2026. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/2026-report-on-employer-firms)
- **98%** of U.S. small business owners using AI said it had not changed their number of employees, and 30% said it increased productivity, according to the NFIB Research Center in 2025. (Source: NFIB Research Center, Small Business and Technology, June 2025. https://www.nfib.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/2025-NFIB-Technology-Survey.pdf)
- **47%** of U.S. small businesses that use AI said it is creating jobs in their business, while 6% said it is enabling headcount reductions, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2026. (Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business (2026), October 2026. https://www.uschamber.com/technology/2026-empowering-small-business-report)
- Small businesses that pay for AI spend a median of **$250** a month on it, and about 41% of small businesses are using free AI tools, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2026. (Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business (2026), October 2026. https://www.uschamber.com/technology/2026-empowering-small-business-report)
- **78%** of U.S. businesses surveyed by Intuit said AI had improved their productivity, and 43% said it had increased revenue, according to Intuit's 2026 AI Impact Report on small and midsize businesses. (Source: Intuit, 2026 AI Impact Report: Mapping Adoption, Use, and Impact Across Small to Midsize Businesses, May 2026. https://www.intuit.com/blog/global-stories/ai-impact-report/) Note: Vendor survey; self-reported.
- **93%** of small business owners using AI said it had a positive impact on their business, and 73% wanted more training and implementation resources, according to Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices in 2026. (Source: Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices, Survey: Small Businesses Embrace AI, But Need Training and Support to Fully Harness It, March 2026. https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/press-releases/2026/small-businesses-embrace-ai-but-need-training-and-support-to-fully-harness-it) Note: Programme participants, not a representative sample of all small businesses.

## How much time does AI save? Measured productivity gains

- Customer support agents given an AI assistant resolved **15%** more issues per hour on average, in a study of 5,172 agents by Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2025. (Source: Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, Generative AI at Work, Quarterly Journal of Economics 140(2), May 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae044) Note: One company, and a staggered rollout of the tool, not a randomised trial.
- Professionals using ChatGPT finished writing tasks in **40%** less time, and the quality of their output rose 18%, in an experiment with 453 professionals by Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang published in Science in 2023. (Source: Noy and Zhang, Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence, Science 381(6654), July 2023. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh2586) Note: Short one-off writing tasks set by the researchers, not day-to-day work.
- Consultants using GPT-4 completed 12.2% more tasks and finished them **25.1%** more quickly on work suited to AI, in an experiment with 758 Boston Consulting Group consultants published in Organization Science in 2026. (Source: Dell'Acqua and co-authors, Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier, Organization Science 37(2), March 2026. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.21838) Note: Designed tasks at one consulting firm. The same study found a cost: see the limits section.
- Software developers given an AI coding assistant completed about **26%** more tasks, across three company experiments with 4,867 developers published in Management Science in 2026. (Source: Cui and co-authors, The Effects of Generative AI on High-Skilled Work: Evidence from Three Field Experiments with Software Developers, Management Science 72(11), November 2026. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2025.00535) Note: The estimate is 26.08% with a wide margin of error (standard error 10.3%). Two authors work at Microsoft, which makes the tool.
- Office workers who used an AI tool built into their work apps spent **two fewer hours** on email each week, in a six-month randomised experiment across 66 firms and 7,137 workers published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2025. (Source: Dillon, Jaffe, Immorlica and Stanton, Shifting Work Patterns with Generative AI, NBER Working Paper 33795, May 2025. https://www.nber.org/papers/w33795) Note: A working paper. The authors found no change in the amount or mix of tasks people did.
- U.S. workers who use generative AI reported saving **5.4%** of their work hours, about 2.2 hours in a 40-hour week, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in 2025; across all workers, including non-users, the saving was 1.4%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (Bick, Blandin and Deming), The Impact of Generative AI on Work Productivity, February 2025. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/feb/impact-generative-ai-work-productivity) Note: Self-reported by workers, unlike the other studies in this section.

## Where AI and automation fall short

- A GPT-4 business assistant had **no detectable average effect** on revenue or profit for 640 Kenyan small business owners in a randomised trial published in Management Science in 2026; owners who were already struggling did nearly 10% worse. (Source: Otis, Clarke, Delecourt, Holtz and Koning, The Uneven Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Entrepreneurial Performance, Management Science, July 2026. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06909) Note: The authors found owners who were already doing well may have gained over 15%. The difference came from which advice owners chose to act on.
- Consultants using GPT-4 were **19% less likely** to produce a correct solution on a task chosen to be beyond what the AI could do, in the same 758-person Boston Consulting Group experiment published in Organization Science in 2026. (Source: Dell'Acqua and co-authors, Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier, Organization Science 37(2), March 2026. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.21838)
- AI chatbots had **no measurable effect** on workers' earnings or recorded hours two years after arriving, in a study linking 25,000 Danish workers to official records by Anders Humlum and Emilie Vestergaard (2025); the authors rule out effects larger than 2%. (Source: Humlum and Vestergaard, Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects, Becker Friedman Institute Working Paper 2025-56, May 2025. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-papers/large-language-models-small-labor-market-effects/) Note: A working paper covering Denmark only.

## Why small businesses don't adopt AI

- Among the 33% of U.S. small employer firms with no plans to use AI, **over half** said it is not applicable to their business and 30% said they prefer not to use it, according to the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey. (Source: Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, March 2026. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/2026-report-on-employer-firms)
- Among U.S. small employer firms planning to adopt AI, **54%** said a top challenge is finding tools that meet their business needs and 37% cited the time required to implement it or train employees, according to the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey. (Source: Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, March 2026. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/2026-report-on-employer-firms)
- **46%** of U.S. small employer firms already using AI named accuracy as a challenge, according to the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey. (Source: Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, March 2026. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/2026-report-on-employer-firms)
- **36%** of small and midsize business decision makers who do not use AI said they are not familiar enough with it, and 19% said it is too expensive, according to a 2025 Morning Consult survey for Verizon Business. (Source: Verizon Business and Morning Consult, State of Small Business Survey, April 2025. https://www.verizon.com/about/sites/default/files/Verizon_State_of_SMB_April_2025.pdf) Note: Vendor-sponsored survey.
- **60%** of small business owners are concerned about data privacy and security with AI, and 43% trust AI to handle important tasks, according to Chase's July 2026 survey of business owners. (Source: JPMorganChase, Chase small business pulse report, August 2026, August 2026. https://media.chase.com/content/dam/chase/media-center/intelligence/sb-pulse-aug-2026.pdf)

## Small business and workplace AI in context

- There are **36.2 million** small businesses in the United States, 99.9% of all firms, and 82.3% of them have no employees, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy in 2026. (Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business 2026, February 2026. https://advocacy.sba.gov/2026/02/03/frequently-asked-questions-about-small-business-2026/) Note: Small means fewer than 500 employees. Businesses with no employees are not covered by the Census survey used in our AI gap analysis.
- **21%** of U.S. workers said at least some of their work is done with AI in September 2025, up from 16% a year earlier, according to Pew Research Center; 65% said they don't use AI much or at all in their job. (Source: Pew Research Center, About 1 in 5 U.S. workers now use AI in their job, up since last year, October 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/06/about-1-in-5-us-workers-now-use-ai-in-their-job-up-since-last-year/)
- **20.0%** of EU enterprises with 10 or more employees used AI in 2025, up from 13.5% in 2024, according to Eurostat. (Source: Eurostat, 20% of EU enterprises use AI technologies, December 2025. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20251211-2) Note: Excludes businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
- **30%** of UK businesses used at least one AI technology in September 2026, up from 9% in September 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics: 29% of businesses with fewer than 10 employees against 51% of those with 100 or more. (Source: Office for National Statistics, Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 8 October 2026, October 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/bulletins/businessinsightsandimpactontheukeconomy/8october2026) Note: A voluntary survey that the ONS labels official statistics in development.
- **19.2%** of Canadian businesses used AI to produce goods or deliver services in the 12 months before spring 2026, up from 6.1% two years earlier, according to Statistics Canada. (Source: Statistics Canada, Analysis on artificial intelligence use by businesses in Canada, second quarter of 2026, June 2026. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2026010-eng.htm)

## How to cite

InfiniOffice. (2026). Small business AI and automation statistics (2026). https://infinioffice.com/automation-statistics/