SBE Council June 5, 2026 9:48am
Written by Raymond J. Keating –
The adoption of AI in small and medium-sized businesses is accelerating, particularly among employer organizations. These are among the findings of the first report in JPMorgan Chase Institute’s new research series, “Small Businesses in the Age of AI.”
of report“Understanding the Use of AI in Small Businesses” was written by Chris Wheat, Chi Mac, and Andrea Passalacqua. The findings are not based on survey data, which obviously has unique value, but instead come from transactional data from Chase Business Banking, which “tracks payments for AI services made by small businesses from 2019 to 2025 and provides an objective measure of adoption behavior across the small business sector.” To get the full picture, these findings should be considered alongside or alongside survey data from small and medium-sized businesses that capture a wide range of AI services, behaviors, and opinions.
AI introduction is steadily accelerating
Among the findings, the study found that “AI adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises will show a steady upward trend from 2019 to 2025, with significant increases in adoption starting around 2023.”
It was also reported that AI adoption is rapid “compared to previous general-purpose technologies, which have historically taken decades to achieve comparable adoption.”
I’ve listed a variety of reasons for this, but I found two to be particularly compelling. One is low cost. In other words, “New AI services were now available through low-cost subscriptions, in sharp contrast to previous technologies such as personal computers (PCs) and the Internet, which required large capital investments to purchase expensive hardware and Internet service contracts.” “AI services delivered through cloud-based platforms have eliminated the requirements for technical expertise that previously limited adoption.”
Small businesses using multiple AI tools
To understand how widespread the use of paid AI services is, the study examines the number of small and medium-sized businesses that use multiple services. “Instead of relying on a single application, enterprises are increasingly adopting multiple services. The proportion of enterprises paying for only one AI service has decreased from 89 percent in 2019 to 72 percent by 2025. Meanwhile, enterprises paying for two services will increase from 10 percent to 18 percent, and those paying for three or more services will increase from less than 1 percent to 9 percent. ” has increased.
These points regarding the use and usage of multiple paid AI services are generally consistent with extensive survey data from the SBE Council’s annual report. “Survey on technology usage among small and medium-sized enterprises”.
For example, the study found that 82% of small business employers have implemented at least one AI tool. And when it comes to the use of multiple applications, SBE Council research shows that “the median number of AI tools used by small and medium-sized businesses is five, indicating that AI deployments typically require multiple tools rather than a single application.” Of course, the difference here is the difference between paid applications and paid and free applications.
Regarding trends in the types of AI services being adopted, the authors of the JPMorgan report explain:
“Early on, the AI services that SMBs purchased were primarily limited to marketing, with smaller contributions to AI infrastructure and customer relationship management. Over time, SMBs significantly expanded the portfolio of AI services they paid for, with generative AI emerging as the dominant category and other services increasing in relative importance. Taken together, these results show that the AI services purchased by SMBs A dual diversification pattern was evident in both the number and scope of services. This may suggest that small and medium-sized enterprises have deepened the integration of AI across business functions, coinciding with a shift away from targeted experimentation and enabling broader operational deployment. ”
Employer companies have a high AI adoption rate
Finally, it is not surprising that employer companies were found to have significantly higher adoption rates of paid AI services compared to non-employer companies. “Employer companies consistently adopted AI at significantly higher rates than non-employer companies. In January 2023, 9.6% of employer companies had adopted AI and just 4% of non-employer companies had adopted AI, a difference of 5.6 percentage points. This employer advantage persisted across all years in the data, and the gap widened as overall adoption increased. In December, this gap widened to 10.8 percentage points, to 26.1 percent, compared to 15.3 percent of employer companies.This continued advantage among non-employer companies may reflect differences in organizational structure and capabilities, not just financial resources.
That last point is interesting. We find that the spread between employer and non-employer firms remains roughly constant across earnings levels. It was pointed out that:
“Within each size category, employer firms had a significantly higher hiring rate than non-employer firms. By December 2025, among firms with the lowest revenues (less than $250,000), employer firms had a hiring rate of 27.6%; Notably, small non-employer companies had a higher hiring rate than large non-employer companies, at 27.6% compared to 19. You may lack the bandwidth, specialized skills, and time necessary to implement and learn, and you may face the challenge of managing all business functions yourself, a constraint that may continue regardless of your revenue level. ”
This last point is related to the SBE Council’s findings. In other words, 19% of small businesses using AI report that AI has created more jobs, and only 9% point to a net loss of jobs. Meanwhile, 52% say AI will complement their workforce, and 40% of AI small businesses plan to increase hiring in the next year.
When considering these developments and where these issues are heading, we need to keep a broader point in mind. AI will be deployed in a variety of ways, some of which will be very different from what is currently expected. These decisions are ultimately made by consumers, and by entrepreneurs and businesses who strive to best serve the market, i.e., serve the consumer.
Raymond J. Keating is Chief Economist at the Council on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He is the author of “.Weekly Economist” series, 10 points about entrepreneurship from Walt Disney.
