Small businesses that adopt AI are more optimistic about growth, revenue, and employment

SMBs using AI are more likely to expect a positive impact on employment AI could be helping them to overcome constraints and unlock more revenue Expectations vs. reality gap shows only 31% have increased sales so far A new study by the NY Federal Reserve Bank has revealed SMBs who actually adopt AI feel far more optimistic about hiring and revenue growth than non-adopters, and the data comes from a near 50:50 split, because nearly half (46%) of US SMBs already use AI, it found.

AI adopters reportedly recorded a 33 percentage point net expectation of higher employment in the next year compared with 15 percentage points for non-adopters, which is more than double.

But with only one in two (51%) adopters having actually integrated AI into their business processes either partially or fully, many are likely still just experimenting with the tech and not embedded it into actual use cases.

Positivity about AI is actually strongest among AI adopters On the jobs front, while initial concerns largely centered around AI replacing human workers, three in four (77%) of the surveyed businesses actually reported no change in their current labor costs due to AI, indicating that AI is largely assisting existing workers rather than outright replacing them.

But that's not to say that finances are set to stay flat – it's actually a much more positive story.

Adopters are the most likely to expect healthy revenue growth, and the businesses that are struggling the most financially could be among the most optimistic.

Still, expectations and reality are totally different metrics, and fewer than one in three (31%) have actually reported increased sales due to using AI.

"In other words, it seems unlikely that the association between AI use and positive revenue expectations is spurious," the report concludes.

Still, the researchers agree that "AI may be helping some small businesses overcome specific operational or technical constraints that limit revenue generation."