Small Employers Adopt AI Cautiously: Use Is Concentrated in Writing and Marketing, Not Automation
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has released its Small Business and Technology Survey, a nationwide poll of small employers. These are small businesses with at least one employee. The survey covers new or significantly improved technology, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and website ownership.
Nearly a quarter (24%) of small employers currently use AI technologies for business activity, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Grammarly and Canva. The other 76% do not. Uptake varies with size, from 21% among firms with single-digit headcount to 48% at firms with 50 or more employees.
Communications and marketing lead
Twenty-nine percent of small employers use or plan to use AI for communications, meaning email, memos and documents. Twenty-seven percent cite marketing or advertising. Fourteen percent report business or predictive analysis and 9% customer service. Accounting, process automation and cybersecurity or fraud detection each stand at 4%.
Expectations are broadly positive. Sixty-three percent think AI will be important in their industry over the next five years to some degree: 12% extremely, 21% moderately and 30% mildly. Fifteen percent say it will not be important at all, and 23% did not know. Among AI users, 98% report no change in the number of employees.
Technology more broadly
Fifty-seven percent of small employers introduced new or significantly improved technology in the last two years. That ranges from 51% of single-digit firms to 75% of those with 50 or more employees. Sixty-five percent said it helped them stay competitive, 14% said it let them catch up and 11% said it put them ahead.
Forty-eight percent believe they hold no overall technological advantage over their main competitors. Twenty-two percent report an advantage and 10% a disadvantage. Eighty-two percent have a website, and 19% of those accept payments through it.
Holly Wade, Executive Director of the NFIB Research Center, said: "Use of updated technology contributes to competitiveness and productivity." The survey went to a random sample of 20,000 NFIB members between 6 and 31 March 2025. A total of 521 respondents completed it.
A tools-first pattern
The usage pattern suggests small employers treat AI as a writing and marketing aid rather than an operating system. Communications and marketing sit far ahead of process automation. That implies the first wave of adoption is built on low-friction tools that need no integration work, which is where a non-technical owner would naturally start.
The gap between expectation and practice is the more telling signal. Most owners foresee AI mattering in their industry, yet most have not adopted it. This may reflect uncertainty about where to begin rather than resistance, and the sizeable share who did not know how important it will be points the same way.
Size, headcount and competitive position
The rise in uptake with firm size suggests the smallest businesses face the steepest barriers. Capacity to evaluate, set up and maintain tools probably matters as much as price. Owners of very small firms may gain most from tools that work without specialist support.
The finding on headcount is worth reading carefully. For current users, AI has not visibly changed staffing, so early benefits are more likely to appear as time or output per person than as job changes. The survey does not measure that, so owners should set their own baselines before judging results.
Most firms see themselves as level with competitors, and most use new technology to stay competitive rather than to get ahead. That makes timing relevant. As AI use spreads from communications into areas such as customer service and accounting, the businesses that build repeatable workflows early could open a gap. It will be worth watching whether the 4% using process automation grows, and whether sample limits, since respondents were drawn from one membership body, hide a different picture among non-members.