Skip to content
Slow Variables

Ask the data

Answers come from the same store as the site; every number is checked against the record it cites.

Early adoption · Adopters

US firms using AI (Census BTOS)

consistent with normal70/95 confidence, good evidence, some ambiguitygrade Acoincident

1What this measures

Share of US businesses reporting AI use in any business function in the last two weeks, Census Business Trends and Outlook Survey. The question changed in November 2025, so this is the post-break series.

Why it matters. The firm-level extensive margin from an official biweekly survey of 1.2 million businesses. Employment-weighted use is higher; small firms dominate the count.

Proxy types
behaviour, deployment
Unit
share
Cadence
biweekly
Valve
product to adoption

2How we track this

Normal band
≤ 35.0%
Fast band
≥ 50.0%
Falsifying
—

Normal = under about a third of firms in year three, the pace at which PCs and e-commerce reached half of firms over a decade or more; fast = more than half. Ramp's card-spend index (>50%) is a different instrument and not comparable.

Applied to census_btos.us.ai_use_share_v2.2w.

3Tracker interpretation

One firm in five, rising a point or two per quarter - organisational speed, not capability speed.

4Evidence

Latest point
22.4%(21.7%–23.1%)as of 2026-08-09
us
Value the bands apply to
22.4%as of 2026-08-09

21 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.

5Status and reasoning

consistent with normalsince 2026-09-10 · claude-initial-seed

Census BTOS, post-November-2025 instrument: 19.8% of firms using AI in any business function as of 3 May 2026 (Census story, 26 May 2026), inside the normal band (<=35%). The National.xlsx cycle ending 9 Aug 2026 shows 22.4%; that value needs the XLSX connector. Initial seed.

6Timeline notes

  • 2026-08-09 us · 22.4%(21.7%–23.1%)as of 2026-08-09
  • 2026-07-26 us · 21.8%(21.2%–22.4%)as of 2026-07-26
  • 2026-07-12 us · 21.5%(20.7%–22.3%)as of 2026-07-12
  • 2026-06-28 us · 21.7%(21.1%–22.3%)as of 2026-06-28
  • 2026-06-14 us · 20.6%(19.8%–21.4%)as of 2026-06-14
  • 2026-05-31 us · 20.6%(20.1%–21.1%)as of 2026-05-31

7Counterevidence

What cuts against this reading

Series break in November 2025 (the pre-break series is shown as v1); 'AI use' is self-defined by respondents; the count is dominated by very small firms.

8Update history

  1. 2026-09-10unmeasured to consistent with normalconf — → 70 · claude-initial-seed

    Census BTOS, post-November-2025 instrument: 19.8% of firms using AI in any business function as of 3 May 2026 (Census story, 26 May 2026), inside the normal band (<=35%). The National.xlsx cycle ending 9 Aug 2026 shows 22.4%; that value needs the XLSX connector. Initial seed.

    obs:955af5a5

9Confidence

70 / 95 — good evidence, some ambiguity

Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; below 50 limited or vague.

10Related