AI adoption in Canada: business statistics for 2026

How many Canadian businesses use AI?

19.2% of Canadian businesses reported using AI to produce goods or deliver services over the 12 months before the second-quarter 2026 Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, run by Statistics Canada. The same question returned 12.2% in 2025 and 6.1% in 2024.

The 2026 figure comes from 9,251 responses out of 21,105 businesses sampled, weighted to represent Canadian businesses. Because the question asks about the previous 12 months, the 2026 answers cover roughly April 2025 to May 2026.

There will not be a 2027 figure from this survey. Statistics Canada said the final collection of the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions would take place in summer 2026, and its third-quarter release on 31 August 2026 was described as the final iteration. If you see a newer Statistics Canada AI figure, check which survey it came from before comparing it with these.

Planned adoption

In 2025, 17.9% of businesses said they planned to adopt AI software in the following 12 months, up from 11.5% in 2024. 6.0% planned to adopt AI hardware, up from 5.0%. The 2026 analysis did not publish a planned-adoption figure, so these are the latest available.

What this means for you

AI use tripled in two years, but four in five businesses still do not use it to make or deliver anything. If you are not using it yet, you are in the majority. The useful question is not whether to adopt AI in general. It is whether one specific task in your business is the kind of task AI does well. The next sections show which tasks those are.

Which industries in Canada use AI the most?

Information and cultural industries (42.3%) and finance and insurance (40.4%) had the highest AI use in Canada in 2026, followed by professional, scientific and technical services (32.4%). The lowest rates were in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (4.5%), wholesale trade (7.9%) and construction (9.2%).

A note on the 2025 column, because the two official publications disagree. The June 2026 analysis gives the 2025 rate for finance and insurance as 31.7% and for professional, scientific and technical services as 30.6%. The June 2025 analysis gives the same two numbers the other way round: professional services 31.7%, finance and insurance 30.6%. The table shows the 2026 publication's version. We flag the conflict rather than pick one.

In 2025, the lowest rates were in accommodation and food services (1.5%), agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (1.8%) and transportation and warehousing (1.8%).

Urban and rural businesses

21.0% of urban businesses used AI in 2026, against 9.9% of rural businesses. In 2025 the figures were 13.3% and 5.7%, and in 2024 they were 6.7% and 3.3%. Both groups have roughly tripled since 2024, but the gap between them has widened in absolute terms.

What this means for you

If you are in finance, insurance, professional services or media, about two in five of your peers already use AI, so clients will start to expect what it makes possible, such as faster replies and quicker quotes. In construction, wholesale, logistics or agriculture, use is low. Low use usually means the ready-made tools do not fit the work well. That is where a narrow tool built around your own data can still put you ahead. Our pages on manufacturing software and workflow automation show what that looks like in practice.

Does business size change AI use?

Larger businesses use AI more, but the smallest are not far behind. 27.8% of businesses with 100 or more employees used AI in 2026, against 19.9% of businesses with 1 to 4 employees. Statistics Canada did not publish use rates for the 5 to 19 and 20 to 99 employee groups in its 2026 analysis.

Business age

Younger firms use AI more. In 2026, use was 21.7% among businesses two years old or less, 25.0% for those 3 to 10 years old, 18.4% for 11 to 20 years and 15.0% for businesses older than 20 years.

What this means for you

Size is a smaller divide than many people expect. A one-to-four person firm is almost as likely to use AI as a much larger one, mostly through ready-made tools. In our view the gap that matters more is between businesses whose data sits in one place and businesses whose data does not. Every AI use beyond a basic chatbot needs clean data to work on. If your records live in spreadsheets and inboxes, sorting that out is the first project, and it pays off whether or not AI follows. See signs your business needs custom software.

What do Canadian businesses use AI for?

Data analytics is now the most common business use of AI in Canada. Among businesses that used AI in 2026, 36.6% used it for data analytics, 34.5% for text analytics and 28.2% for virtual agents or chatbots.

The fastest risers were decision-making systems based on AI (5.7% to 13.7%) and deep learning (6.6% to 13.1%). Marketing automation fell from 23.1% to 19.8%. Statistics Canada does not publish a separate generative AI figure. Large language models, at 24.8%, is the closest measure.

Uses by industry and size

In information and cultural industries, the top use was virtual agents or chatbots (50.9%). In finance and insurance, text analytics and large language models tied at 38.8%. In professional, scientific and technical services, data analytics led at 48.6%. Half (50.5%) of AI users with 100 or more employees ran chatbots, while the smallest firms leaned on data analytics (32.5%) and text analytics (29.4%).

What this means for you

The common uses are reading and summarizing documents, answering routine questions, and finding patterns in data you already hold. All three depend on the software around the AI: where your documents are stored, what a chatbot is allowed to see, and whether your data is in a shape a model can use. Most of the work in a business AI project is that plumbing, which is why we usually start with API integration and data cleanup rather than with the model.

If one of these uses matches a task your team does every week, write down how many hours it takes and enter the number in the ROI calculator. It shows whether the time saved would cover a build before you speak to anyone.

What stops Canadian businesses from using AI?

The most common answer is that AI does not apply. In 2026, 40.0% of businesses said AI is not relevant to the goods or services they provide, and 23.0% said nothing limits their use of AI. Among specific barriers, cybersecurity or privacy concerns (13.4%) and the cost of using AI (10.6%) led.

Privacy concern rises with size. 30.0% of businesses with 100 or more employees named it as a barrier, against 11.6% of businesses with 1 to 4 employees. Larger firms tend to hold more personal data, so they have more to protect.

What this means for you

Privacy is the barrier that software design can reduce. A model that only sees the data it needs, runs on infrastructure you choose and logs what it did carries a different risk from staff pasting customer records into a public chatbot. The federal privacy bill tabled in June 2026 would also require organizations to explain automated decisions on request, which we cover in Bill C-36 explained. Health care, where 26.4% named privacy as a barrier, has its own numbers in our digital health statistics for Canada.

What does AI do to jobs and training?

Most Canadian businesses that use AI have not changed their headcount because of it. In 2025, 89.4% of AI-using businesses reported no change in total employment, 4.3% reported an increase and 6.3% a decrease. The 2026 analysis did not publish employment figures.

AI is taking over parts of jobs more than whole jobs. In 2025, among AI users, 5.3% said AI reduced tasks employees used to do to a large extent, 32.4% to a moderate extent, 47.2% to a small extent and 15.1% not at all.

Training is the main change. In 2026, 44.4% of AI-using businesses changed their training or staffing practices because of AI: 32.0% trained existing employees and 21.6% trained executives.

What this means for you

Plan for training, not layoffs. The businesses using AI are mostly teaching their existing people to use it on their own work. If you bring in outside help, the deliverable should include that handover: documentation, a short training session, and someone on your side who understands how the tool decides what it does.

What does a data breach cost a Canadian business, and where does AI fit?

The average data breach cost a Canadian organization CA$7.11 million in IBM's 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the highest the study has recorded for Canada. IBM put the Canadian average at CA$6.98 million in 2025 and CA$6.32 million in 2024.

The 2026 report covers breaches between March 2025 and February 2026 at 602 organizations worldwide. In Canada, energy (CA$9.21 million), technology (CA$9.02 million) and industrial (CA$8.89 million) were the costliest sectors. The average Canadian breach took 205 days to identify and contain, and supply-chain compromise was the largest single cost driver at about CA$367,899 per incident.

AI cuts both ways. 28% of Canadian organizations in the 2026 study reported an AI-generated attack. In the 2025 study, breaches involving shadow AI, meaning AI tools staff use without approval, added CA$308,000 to the average Canadian breach, and IBM reported that one in three Canadian businesses lacked access controls on their AI systems.

What this means for you

These are averages across mostly large organizations, so a small firm's breach will usually cost fewer dollars and may cost more as a share of revenue. The pattern still holds at any size: unapproved AI tools add cost, and controlled ones reduce it. Giving staff an approved tool that only reaches approved data is cheaper than finding out later what was pasted where. Our privacy by design checklist lists what to build in.

Why do Canadian AI adoption figures disagree?

Different sources report very different AI adoption rates for Canada because they ask different questions of different groups of businesses.

Broad definitions, such as any employee using a chatbot for any task, produce higher numbers. Statistics Canada's question is narrower: AI used in producing what the business sells. Note also that the federal strategy, announced on 4 June 2026, cites the 12% figure from 2025 even though Statistics Canada had published 19.2% a week earlier, on 27 May 2026.

What this means for you

When someone tells you that most of your competitors already use AI, ask which number they mean. For planning, the Statistics Canada series is the most consistent: the same question in the same survey, three years running.

What public support exists for AI adoption in Canada?

The federal target is for 60% of Canadian businesses, particularly SMEs, to have adopted AI tools by 2034. It comes from AI for All, the national AI strategy the Prime Minister announced on 4 June 2026. Three programs matter most to an ordinary business:

• BDC LIFT: $500 million earmarked for loans from $25,000 to $5 million for digital tools, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, Canadian AI applications and automation, paired with advisory support. BDC launched it on 24 April 2026.
• Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative: expanded on 13 October 2026 with an additional $500 million over five years, for $700 million in total, delivered by the regional development agencies.
• Southern Ontario: FedDev Ontario accepts applications until 19 January 2027 at 4:59 p.m. EST, and asks for them by 24 November 2026 if project costs start before 31 March 2027.
• Atlantic Canada: ACOA's call for proposals closes on 20 November 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ADT.

We go through the eligibility rules, what these programs will not pay for, and a deadline checklist in Canada AI funding for business.

What this means for you

Most of this money is repayable, and the regional programs exclude buying commonly available AI tools. It suits a defined project with a measurable result. That happens to be the only kind of AI project worth doing anyway.

How we compiled this

Every figure on this page comes from a source we opened on 23 October 2026, and each is written as the source states it, with the period it covers. The full list is under Sources at the end of the page.

• Adoption data: Statistics Canada's Canadian Survey on Business Conditions for the second quarters of 2024, 2025 and 2026, and its two AI analysis articles, published on 16 June 2025 and 11 June 2026.
• Breach costs: IBM Canada's releases for the 2025 and 2026 Cost of a Data Breach reports. Dollar figures are in Canadian dollars as IBM Canada reported them.
• Policy and programs: the Government of Canada (the Prime Minister's Office, ISED, FedDev Ontario and ACOA) and BDC's own release.
• Excluded: vendor surveys that do not publish a method, figures repeated by blogs without naming their origin, and surveys from other countries, which ask different questions.
• Where 2026 did not publish a figure, such as employment effects or planned adoption, we give the 2025 figure and say so.

We will update this page if Statistics Canada publishes business AI use data from a replacement survey.

What to do with these numbers

Pick one process, measure it, and decide on evidence. This checklist takes about an hour:

1. 1List the five tasks that take your team the most hours each week.
2. 2Mark the ones that involve reading, sorting, summarizing or answering the same questions. These match the uses Canadian businesses report most.
3. 3For each marked task, write down where its data lives today: one system, several systems, or spreadsheets and email.
4. 4Put the weekly hours and the loaded hourly cost into the ROI calculator.
5. 5Check the funding deadlines in Canada AI funding for business before you commit to a start date.
6. 6Read is AI worth it for a small business for the decision itself.

If you would like a second opinion, we will look at the process with you and tell you in writing whether AI, plain automation or no change at all is the right answer. Book a free consultation. It costs nothing and there is no obligation.