The Self-Reported Use of AI: The UK Statistics Office on Artificial Intelligence in UK Businesses, July 2026

On July 20, 2026, the UK's Office for National Statistics released "Artificial intelligence in UK businesses: 2023 to 2026." It uses the Business Insights and Conditions Survey to show how UK businesses are applying AI, what shapes its uptake, how it is being built into business activities, and where its effects are emerging. The survey's latest wave, Wave 159, ran in June 2026. In that wave 38,637 businesses responded, a response rate of 26.7%, and the dataset behind the bulletin is published as official statistics in development. Parts of it follow, not the whole.

In the survey, AI "is not defined as a single concept." It is captured through a list of specific technologies, and the headline measure is whether a business reports using any of them. That offers "a consistent baseline," the bulletin says, but it "treats all reported uses as equivalent and does not distinguish between light use, user‑level use, and more embedded, production‑level adoption." Some industries are excluded from the survey, among them agriculture, "public administration and defence," and "finance and insurance."

How Many, and How Deep

The self-reported use of AI in UK businesses with 10 or more employees, the bulletin says, has increased from around 12% to around 35% since late 2023, with larger firms more likely to have adopted it. Adoption has been "relatively shallow" so far. The average number of AI technologies used by each adopting business has risen only modestly over the same period, which, in its words, "would imply relatively limited transformative impacts to date for most AI-adopting firms." It adds that the count of technologies is "not a perfect proxy of AI intensity."

New questions in the latest wave asked how extensively AI is used. Among businesses with 10 or more employees that use at least one AI technology, only 10% report using it extensively. Larger businesses are much more likely to report being unsure about the extent of AI use and the share of employees using AI, and the bulletin says these results "should be interpreted as early indications."

Reported use is higher among employees than among businesses. Over half of employees, 55%, report using AI for work or education, against around a third of businesses reporting use of at least one AI technology. The employee figure comes from a separate survey, of people in Great Britain. Individual employees, the bulletin says, "may use AI tools independently, as part of their day-to-day work activities," and the employee measure "may include more informal or ad hoc usage."

How Businesses Get AI, and What For

How a business gets its AI differs by industry. Businesses in manufacturing, wholesale and retail, accommodation and food services, and administrative and support services most commonly report using free-to-use software. But businesses "in construction, information and communication, and professional, scientific and technical activities are more likely to access AI through the purchase of external software or ready-to-use services."

In the bulletin's chart of the proportion of businesses using AI by purpose, improving business operations is the most reported use across all business size bands. Close to 60% of businesses report using AI for this purpose, "with slightly lower rates among smaller businesses." Developing new products and exploring new markets are reported by a smaller share. This, the bulletin says, indicates that AI is "more commonly used to improve existing operations, rather than to support new market entry or product development."

Headcount, Roles and Training

Most businesses report that using AI has not changed their overall workforce headcount so far. Across all size bands, around half reported no impact on headcount, and a notable share said the impact was uncertain or not applicable. Among businesses using machine learning to process data, the roles most commonly reported as affected are administrative or clerical roles, at 41%, and data analysis roles, at 39%.

Training or retraining existing staff is the way businesses most commonly report integrating AI skills into their workforce. Among businesses with 10 or more employees that cited a lack of AI expertise as a barrier in the last three months, around 62% report training or retraining existing staff to integrate AI skills, against around 26% of businesses reporting no barriers. "However, this remains limited in practice," the bulletin says. Only 11% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported that more than half of their workforce has received AI-related training.

The headline counts a business that uses one tool lightly the same as one that has built AI into its work, and the bulletin says so plainly. For a firm whose work is prepared with AI, the training question may say more than the headline, and the bulletin calls what it found there "limited in practice."

Measurement of AI adoption and use across the UK economy, the bulletin says, "remains a work in progress." Its new questions on the extent of AI use and the share of employees using AI in their daily work, it says, will "help measure this more directly in future analyses."