Artificial intelligence adoption among U.S. small and medium-sized businesses has climbed to 66% in 2026, up from 55% a year earlier, according to a Thryv survey of 561 decision-makers. The survey found that one-third of respondents are spending more on AI tools than they were 12 months ago, while 53% said they spend at least $100 a month on the technology. Among businesses already using AI, 70% said it increased revenue over the past year, 55% said it reduced costs, and 92% said it saved time.
The findings suggest that efficiency remains a major driver of adoption. About 79% of AI users said they expect to recover between 11 and 60 hours per month, and 46% of owners said they would choose AI software over hiring a new employee if both could perform the same task equally well. At the same time, the survey pointed to capability gaps: 70% of owners said they need more training to use AI effectively. Many respondents said they rely on YouTube, social media, online resources, webinars and AI tools such as ChatGPT to learn how to use the technology.
Supporters of broader AI deployment argue that those gains show why businesses are moving quickly to integrate the technology. In corporate training and executive development, BTS said rebuilding its business simulation platforms around AI has sharply reduced development time and allowed consultants to focus more on strategic judgment and decision-making. The company said AI now automates much of the initial work while preserving a human role in shaping high-stakes trade-offs, with projects that once took weeks now completed in less than a day.
At the same time, the political and policy debate around AI is widening beyond business productivity. Roberto Baldoni and Len Khodorkovsky argued that AI should be built around what they call “trusted technology,” warning against both excessive concentration of value in a few dominant models and isolated national AI systems. They pointed to the Pax Silica Summit in Washington, where 35 nations signed the Joint Statement on AI Opportunity, and highlighted proposals including resilient supply chains, shared standards and the Global Trusted Tech Standard developed by the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue.
Those arguments also contain a caution about who defines trust and control in the AI era. Baldoni and Khodorkovsky cited concerns from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about value being captured by a small number of models, and from Palantir CEO Alex Karp about dependence on dominant Silicon Valley platforms. Together, those concerns reflect a broader tension running through the current AI boom: businesses are adopting the technology for speed and savings, while policymakers and industry leaders continue to debate how to govern it without deepening dependency, fragmentation or market concentration.
