report · AI USAGE STATISTICS

The Numbers,With Their Sources.

Every figure on this page names where it came from and when it was measured, so you can check any of it without taking my word for it.

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drop: printed ai usage statistics table with one row marked for …

01 · ai adoption statistics

Four AI adoption numbers.

There are only four headline numbers worth an owner's attention this year. Everything else in this report is context for them.

45 percent of consumers now use AI to find a local business

Up from 6 percent a year earlier, according to BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey published in March 2026, run with a representative panel of 1,002 US adults. A sevenfold move in twelve months.

Between 17 and 20 percent of US businesses report using AI

That band held across the whole survey window in the US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey, covering December 2025 through early May 2026 and published in May 2026, which asks whether a business used AI in any business function. A further 20 to 23 percent expect to inside six months.

ChatGPT is the tool doing the recommending

In the same BrightLocal survey published in March 2026, 31 percent of consumers had used ChatGPT for a business recommendation and 23 percent had used Google AI Mode. The question is no longer whether AI answers exist. It is whether your business is in them.

Small firms are the slow half

The Census Bureau's May 2026 release put AI use at 37 percent among firms with at least 250 employees and 32 percent among firms with 100 to 249, while firms with four or fewer employees stayed under 20 percent. Adoption is a size story, and the gap is widening.

02 · ai adoption in las vegas

AI adoption in The Valley.

Nevada looks strong at the state level. Ooma's analysis of the Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey, published in March 2026, put Nevada third among all states at 21.3 percent of businesses using AI, behind Colorado at 25.2 percent and Arizona at 24.5 percent. That ranking is driven largely by hospitality and gaming, where pricing and security operations already run on forecasting systems.

The Valley's small business layer sits behind that headline, and search demand is the plainest evidence. Checking the Keyword Planner on 28 July 2026, the term ai usage statistics returns 10 monthly searches at Las Vegas scope against 480 nationally, and both las vegas small business statistics and nevada small business statistics return zero.

The large employers here adopted early and the number that flatters Nevada comes from them. The independent practice, the contractor and the clinic are mostly not in it yet, which is exactly the gap the consumer side has already crossed.

03 · what ai adoption means for small business

What AI adoption means for owners.

Consumers went from 6 percent to 45 percent on AI recommendations in a single year, per BrightLocal in March 2026. Businesses moved a few points inside a 17 to 20 percent band, per the Census Bureau in May 2026. Demand ran ahead of supply.

For an owner that resolves into one question, and it is not whether to buy an AI tool. It is whether the AI answers your buyers already read can find your business, describe it correctly and cite a page you control. That is checkable today by asking the same question your customer would ask.

Firms with hundreds of employees are at roughly twice the rate of the smallest firms, per the same Census release, so the advantage available to a small operator is speed rather than scale.

Ask ChatGPT and Google AI Mode the question your best customer would ask, and read what comes back about you.

Check that your name, address, phone and services appear as text on your own pages rather than only inside images.

Make sure your Google Business Profile still matches your website exactly, because both are read by these systems.

Pick one repetitive task in your own operation and put AI on that, instead of starting with a strategy.

evidence

Every audit I publish, in full, at its own URL

04 · ai adoption survey sources

The sources behind every figure.

Four sources carry every figure above. Two are public surveys, one is a published analysis of a public survey, and one is my own measurement, named as mine.

The Census Bureau revised its AI question in November 2025 to ask about use in any business function rather than only in producing goods or services, so figures from before that date are not directly comparable to figures after it.

Consumer surveys and business surveys measure different populations, so the 45 percent and the 17 to 20 percent are not two versions of one number.

Where two sources disagree, both are named here rather than averaged into one figure that neither reported.

A number no source reported is absent from this page. It is never estimated to fill a row.

The sources behind every figure.
source	What it measures	Period and publication
BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey	Consumer use of AI for local business recommendations, tool by tool, with trust and verification behaviour. Panel of 1,002 US adults	Published March 2026
US Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey	Whether a business used AI in any business function, and expects to within six months, broken out by firm size	Survey period December 2025 to early May 2026, published May 2026
Ooma analysis of Census Bureau BTOS data	State by state ranking of business AI use, which is where the Nevada figure comes from	Published March 2026
My own measurements	Search demand for these terms at Las Vegas scope via the Keyword Planner, and first party Search Console data for justinharris.ai	Keyword data captured 28 July 2026, Search Console window 9 July to 6 August 2026

05 · common ai usage statistics questions

AI statistics questions.

What percentage of people use AI regularly?

For the behaviour that matters to a local business, BrightLocal's March 2026 survey found 45 percent of consumers had used AI to find a local business and 31 percent were doing so at least monthly. General AI use is measured differently by every survey that asks, which is why this report sticks to the behaviour instead of the headline.

What is the 30% rule for AI?

It is a rule of thumb rather than a published standard, and it is usually stated as AI carrying about 30 percent of a task while a person keeps the judgment and the accountability. No survey in this report measures it. My own working version is narrower: give AI the part that is repetitive and checkable, keep the part where being wrong costs a customer.

How much usage does AI use?

Two readings, so here are both. On energy and compute, running these systems is resource heavy at the data centre level, and no figure in this report measures that. On what it costs a business to use, the tools are now a small line item and the real cost is the time spent deciding what to point them at.

Is the AI trend going down?

No, on both sides of this report. Business adoption held between 17 and 20 percent across the Census Bureau's December 2025 to May 2026 window with 20 to 23 percent more expecting to adopt inside six months, which is a plateau in current use instead of a decline. Consumer use went the other way entirely, from 6 percent to 45 percent in a year per BrightLocal.

How often is this report updated?

Once a year, as a new edition at its own address, with the previous edition left where it is so the numbers can be compared rather than quietly replaced.

+ · keep reading

See your own numbers.

I crawl your whole site, score it 0 to 100, and send a ranked list of what is costing you customers, including whether AI answer engines can read and cite your pages. About a day. No call needed.