# Census BTOS supplement: 18% of US firms used AI in a business function, and 57% of those in three functions or fewer

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20260401-ai-implementation-lead-4
Date: 2026-04-01 · Stage: Deployment
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/ai-implementation-lead

## Scope

All US firms, nationally representative; reference period Nov 2025 - Jan 2026. 18% firm-weighted, 32% employment-weighted, expected to reach 22% within six months; 50-60% (60-70% employment-weighted) for very large firms in Information, Professional Services and Finance. Among adopters, the most common functions are Sales and Marketing 52%, Strategy and Business Development 45%, IT 41%. This is a count of firms, not of occupations or of people: it says where AI entered a company, never which roles changed. Two further cautions the authors state themselves - the survey questions were revised between supplements, and 23% of firms report workers using AI in tasks against 18% firm-level adoption, so some use is arriving without a company decision at all.

## Source

- U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies (CES-WP-26-25) — https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2026/adrm/ces/CES-WP-26-25.pdf (primary source)

## What this means

For the first time this site can say how common the thing it documents actually is. Most records here are one employer doing one thing; this is a nationally representative count of how many employers have done anything at all — 18% of firms, 32% of employment. It also says where AI lands when it lands: sales and marketing, strategy, IT, and rarely more than three functions at once. If your work sits in one of those three, the tool arriving is the normal case rather than a sign your company is unusual.

## What it does not show yet

It does not say anything about jobs. A firm answering yes has AI somewhere in a business function; nobody asked which roles that function contains, whose tasks changed, or whether anyone's work got easier or narrower. The 18% also cannot be compared cleanly with earlier BTOS readings, because the question was rewritten from AI used in producing goods or services to AI used in any business function — a broader question collects a bigger number without anything having changed in the world.

## How to verify it yourself

Ask inside your own company which business functions have bought or switched on an AI feature in the last six months, and count them. If the answer is more than three, your company is outside the 57% of adopting firms that use AI in three functions or fewer — and adopters are only 18% of firms.


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt