One in five U.S. businesses now uses artificial intelligence (AI), though adoption increasingly varies by company size, industry and location, according to WeWork’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Overall adoption increased from 17.7 percent in January 2026 to 21.7 percent in July, while the expected increase during the next six months declined from 4.7 percentage points to 2.8 percentage points.
Among U.S. firms with 250 or more employees, 38.8 percent use AI, compared with 20.8 percent of firms with one to four employees. The information sector has the highest adoption rate at 43.7 percent, followed by professional services at 37.6 percent and finance and insurance at 36 percent. Among firms using generative AI, more than 85 percent use it for writing and editing, nearly 50 percent use it for information research and nearly 45 percent use it to summarize documents. Nearly 96 percent of firms using AI reported no AI-related change in headcount, while 2 percent cut job
