Most small businesses now use AI, and the ones that do are hiring

Two new surveys landed in early October. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says two thirds of small businesses now use AI. The New York Fed puts it closer to half. They measure different things, but they agree on the part owners worry about most: the businesses using AI are hiring, not cutting.

The U.S. Chamber report

• 66% of small businesses now use AI, up 8 points from 2025 and nearly three times the 23% of 2023.
• 47% say AI is creating jobs today. 6% say it is letting them reduce headcount.
• Businesses using AI are at least 7 points more likely than non-users to report growth in sales, profit, and workforce.
• Six in ten small businesses worry about litigation and compliance costs from the growing patchwork of state privacy and AI laws.

The New York Fed analysis

• Using the Fed’s 2025 Small Business Credit Survey of 5,248 employer firms, 46% said their business or employees were using AI tools, and another 15% planned to start within a year.
• AI users had a net 33-point expectation of adding employees over the next year, against about 15 points for non-users.
• 77% reported no change in labor costs from AI so far.

Our take

Don’t read these as proof that AI makes a business grow. Growing businesses are also the ones with the time and money to try new tools, and the surveys can’t separate the two. What they do show is that the fear of AI as a way to fire people is not what most owners are doing with it. In our own work the pattern is the same: the people stay, and the repetitive part of their day goes away.