The Office for National Statistics reports that 30 per cent of UK businesses used at least one artificial intelligence technology in September 2026, up from just approximately 12 per cent three years earlier.
Three in ten UK businesses reported using at least one form of artificial intelligence in September 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics — a figure that has nearly tripled compared with the approximately 12 per cent recorded when the ONS first introduced the question in September 2023. The data comes from Wave 164 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey, a voluntary fortnightly survey that ran from 7 to 20 September 2026 and produces official statistics classified as still in development.
A separate ONS analysis of businesses with 10 or more employees puts AI use at around 35 per cent as of June 2026, though that figure isn’t directly comparable with the September 2026 headline number because the two series cover different time periods and may use different business-size definitions. What both series agree on: adoption has risen steadily throughout the period.
The gap between large and small firms is stark. Among businesses with 250 or more employees, 49 per cent reported using AI in the June 2026 analysis. That drops to 28 per cent for businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Larger businesses most commonly cited improving business operations as their reason for adoption.
But reported adoption doesn’t tell the whole story. Of businesses with 10 or more employees that said they used at least one AI technology, only 10 per cent described their use as extensive. Large language models were the most widely used technology in that group — 17 per cent reported using them — followed by visual content creation and machine-learning data processing.
On jobs, the ONS has not observed widespread changes in overall workforce headcount linked to AI use. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has noted that productivity claims associated with AI are often self-assessed rather than objectively measured, and that evidence connecting firm-level adoption with higher overall productivity remains limited.
So the figures show a clear and rapid rise in AI adoption across UK businesses — but how deeply embedded that use actually is remains, for now, an open question.
Source: @ONS