Most Small Businesses Now Use AI. Here Is Where They Start.

Published 2026-09-05 · Last updated 2026-09-05

More than half of US small businesses now use AI. The US Chamber of Commerce and Teneo surveyed 3,870 small businesses with under 250 employees in June 2025 and found 58% use generative AI, up from 40% in 2024 and 23% in 2023. Intuit QuickBooks surveyed more than 2,200 US businesses with up to 100 employees in April 2025 and found 68% use AI regularly. The first jobs they hand it are marketing, customer service, and administrative work.

How fast did adoption move?

The Chamber's numbers show the pace. Twenty-three percent in 2023, 40% in 2024, 58% in 2025. That is more than double in two years among businesses under 250 employees.

QuickBooks measured a shorter window and saw the same climb: 68% used AI regularly in April 2025, up from 48% in July 2024. Twenty-eight percent use it daily. Among the businesses not yet using it, 53% said they were considering it.

Salesforce's SMB Trends report, which surveyed 3,350 small and medium business leaders across North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe between August and September 2024, found 75% were experimenting with or using AI, and 83% of the businesses it classed as growing had adopted it.

Do the trades use it as much?

Not yet. The Chamber survey broke adoption out by sector: technology 77%, financial services 74%, entertainment and media 65%, construction 47%, manufacturing 46%. Construction sits eleven points under the overall 58%.

That gap is information. A contractor who puts AI to work on the phone or the paperwork this year is doing something fewer than half of competitors do. The customers, meanwhile, are already there. Pew Research Center's survey of 5,119 US adults in February 2026, reported by Search Engine Land, found about half of US adults use AI chatbots and one in four use one daily.

What do owners use it for first?

QuickBooks asked. The top uses in April 2025 were marketing at 43%, customer service at 36%, administrative tasks at 33%, data processing at 32%, and bookkeeping at 29%. Salesforce's SMB survey listed similar leaders: marketing campaign work, content generation, automated customer recommendations, natural language search, and service chatbots.

The pattern is that owners start where the work is repetitive and the words are the product. Writing the service page. Answering the same question for the tenth time. Turning a call into a ticket. Those are the jobs that eat evenings, and they are jobs a machine can do without being trusted with a decision.

What do they get out of it?

QuickBooks found 74% say AI boosts productivity, up from 46% the year before, and 41% report revenue increases. Salesforce's SMB report found 91% of SMBs using AI say it boosts revenue and 87% say it helps them scale. The Chamber found 82% of AI-using small businesses grew their workforce in the past year, which cuts against the fear that using AI means fewer people on the payroll.

On the customer service side, Salesforce's State of Service report, which surveyed 3,075 service professionals between March and April 2026, found the share of service organizations using AI agents rose from 39% in 2025 to 66% in 2026, and 70% of adopters saw measurable value within 60 days. Customer satisfaction was the top improved measure. All three of these are surveys of people who chose to adopt, and Salesforce sells AI products, so read the enthusiasm with that in mind.

How do you try one without a big spend?

Pick the job, not the tool. Take the three uses owners pick most, marketing, customer service, and admin, and ask which one costs you the most hours or the most missed customers. Then give AI that one job with a clear script and a way to check its work.

• Marketing: draft the service pages and review replies with AI, then edit them in your own words. The cost is near zero. The risk is publishing something you did not read.
• Customer service: put an AI receptionist on the after-hours line first. Every call is recorded, so you can hear exactly what it said before it takes the daytime line.
• Admin: hand it the paperwork you already do the same way every time, such as turning a call summary into a job ticket.
• Set a 60-day check. Salesforce found 70% of adopters saw measurable value inside that window. If you cannot point to a number by then, change the job or stop.
• Write your facts down first. The same State of Service survey found 72% of operations staff name data readiness as the main blocker. In a small shop that means hours, prices, and the service list on paper before any AI can use them.

What are the worries?

The Chamber found 65% of small businesses worry about a patchwork of state AI laws, and 84% plan to increase their use of technology platforms anyway. Customers are cautious too. Yelp's Morning Consult survey of 2,202 US adults in February 2026, which Yelp commissioned, found 65% used AI search in the past six months, only 15% trust it a lot, and 63% double-check AI results against other sources.

The practical answer for an owner is the same on both counts. Be plain about where AI is used, keep it to jobs with a clear script, and make sure a person is reachable. At Optimus we start every business with one AI job, usually the phone, and show the recordings before anything else is added.

Book a 15-minute call to pick your first AI job →