A Federal Reserve Board note by Jeffrey S. Allen compares three public surveys to measure AI adoption in the United States through 2025. The estimates differ by who is asked and how adoption is counted.

The Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey put adoption at about 18 percent of firms at the end of 2025. Before a methodological change in late 2025, that rate had grown by 68 percent, or 3.9 percentage points, over the year ending in September. At the start of 2025, around 9 percent of firms planned to use AI within six months, and over 20 percent expected to use it in the first half of 2026.

The Real-Time Population Survey asks individuals about generative AI. It found work-related use at about 41 percent of the workforce and non-work use at about 50 percent of the population as of November 2025. Those measures grew by about 31 percent, or 9.7 percentage points, and 26 percent, or 10.4 percentage points, over the year ending in November. The most recent quarter showed the strongest growth in work-related use in the series.

The Survey of Business Uncertainty, fielded by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, estimated an employment-weighted AI adoption rate of about 78 percent and an LLM adoption rate of about 54 percent. Employment weighting approximates the share of the labor force working at firms that have adopted AI.

The note reports that adoption rises with firm size, that adoption among the smallest firms is stronger than size alone would predict, and that professional services and finance stand out among five large industries. The author lists differences in sampling, units of analysis and question framing as drivers of the gaps between estimates.

Source: Federal Reserve Board - https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/monitoring-ai-adoption-in-the-u-s-economy-20260403.html