US Census Bureau: AI Adoption Has Declined for Large Companies

Is the AI honeymoon over? Data from the US Census Bureau says it might be, with AI adoption among larger companies reportedly on the decline for the first time since 2023.

For the last few years, AI is virtually the only thing you’ve heard about from the tech world. Models, chatbots, widgets, and extensions have been added to every software under the sun to “improve productivity” beyond our wildest collective imagination.

Now, though, it seems like many companies are dialing back, likely due to the AI return-on-investment being a lot more lackluster than promised.

AI Adoption Is Finally Slowing Down

According to data from the US Census Bureau, fewer large companies are adopting AI into their operations. This represents the first significant and consistent decline in AI adoptions rates since the technology become massive popular in 2023.

More specifically, the data points to businesses with over 250 employees adopting AI significantly less than just a few months ago, with businesses with between 100 and 249 employees and between 50 and 99 employees both seeing a more modest decline.

This data comes from a biweekly survey conducted by the US Census Bureau and collected by Apollo Academy. The survey covers professionals from 1.2 million firms in the US, and specifically asks “whether a business has used AI tools such as machine learning, natural language processing, virtual agents or voice recognition to help produce goods or services in the past two weeks.”

Why Are Fewer Businesses Adopting AI?

Businesses have been pushing an investment in AI like crazy over the few years, so this could just be a natural correction to the overexcitement about the technology. Or, it could be something worse.

According to a recent study from MIT, the majority of businesses are not being inundated by revenue as a result of AI, with 95% of businesses noting that they have seen no return-on-investment as a result of the technology.

Simply put, if technology isn’t making money for a business, they aren’t going to keep using it. And in this case, there are a lot of larger businesses that aren’t seeing their investment in AI lead to anything.

How to Use AI to Improve Your Business

Just because large businesses aren’t taking advantage of AI as much as they used to, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be. There are some real use cases for the tech that can bolster the chances of a small business to succeed.

AI website builders are some of our favorites at Tech.co. They can create a fully functionality website for you in just a few seconds with just a few questions. Plus, they’re often equipped with helpful AI generators for copy and images, so you can really get it to look how you want.

Suffice to say, there are plenty of ways that AI can be used to improve your business. It’s just a matter of finding out what they are and getting on board.