Firm Data on AI

We survey nearly 9,000 CFOs, CEOs and senior executives at firms in the US, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, Mexico and South Africa in Summer 2026 on AI adoption and its effects on jobs and productivity. We establish four key facts. First, 78% of firms use AI, with US firms expecting to spend $2,000 per employee on AI-related expenditures in 2026, implying around $300 billion in aggregate annual firm spending. This AI spending is highly concentrated, with just 2% of firms accounting for over 50% of total spending. Second, 80% of executives report regularly using AI, with an average use of 2.1 hours per week, up from 1.5 hours per week in Winter 2026, highlighting the rapid growth in managerial AI use. Third, executives report that AI has had essentially no net effect on firm employment over the last 3 years, and predict little net impact over the next 3 years. These small net effects, however, mask considerable job churn: more than 40% of firms anticipate positive or negative employment effects that roughly offset only in the aggregate. Fourth, executives report AI adoption has raised annual labor productivity growth by 0.2% over the last 3 years, a modest impact, but expect a substantially larger 0.6% per annum boost over the next 3 years.