AI Adoption in Canadian Businesses 2026: One in Four Plan to Use It, Half Say No

25.2% of Canadian businesses plan to use AI to produce goods or deliver services in the next 12 months. 52.7% say they do not. Among those that do plan to, the applications are analytics and language tools, not robotics.

Asked whether they planned to use artificial intelligence to produce goods or deliver services over the next twelve months, 25.2% of Canadian businesses said yes. 52.7% said no. The remaining 22.1% did not know.

Among the quarter that said yes, the most common planned application is data analytics at 41.7%, followed by large language models at 39.3%. Robotics process automation sits at 5.1%, machine or computer vision at 4.6% and neural networks at 1.7%.

Canadian businesses are adopting AI as a set of software tools for analysis, writing and customer contact. Almost none are adopting it as automation of physical work.

Figures in this article come from a national survey of Canadian businesses and organisations conducted in 2026.

25.2% of Canadian Businesses Plan to Use AI in the Next 12 Months

More than twice as many businesses said no as said yes. A further 22.1% could not say either way.

Data Analytics and Language Models Lead the Applications

Businesses planning to use AI were asked which applications they intended to adopt. They could name more than one.

The top five are all software applied to information: analysing data, generating and reading text, handling customer conversations and automating marketing. The bottom five involve machinery, images, identity and specialised model architectures.

"Canadian businesses are buying AI that reads, writes and summarises. Almost none are buying AI that sees, moves or identifies."

Why neural networks rank last. Neural networks at 1.7% and deep learning at 9.9% are the underlying architecture of the large language models 39.3% of adopters plan to use. Businesses are describing AI by what it does for them, not by how it is built. The gap between those two figures is a naming artefact rather than a real difference in technology deployed, and it is a useful reminder that survey categories reflect how buyers think, not how vendors classify.

Only 9.9% of All Canadian Businesses Plan to Use a Large Language Model

The application percentages above describe businesses that already plan to use AI. Applied to the whole business population, the numbers look different.

Roughly one Canadian business in ten plans to use a large language model in the next year. One in twelve plans to deploy a chatbot. Roughly one in eighty plans to use robotics process automation.

Professional Services at 54.8%, Transportation at 8.0%

Adoption plans vary more by industry than by any other characteristic in the survey.

The spread between professional services and transportation is 46.8 percentage points, a factor of 6.8. Four industries sit above 30%: professional services, information and cultural, finance and insurance, and health care. Five sit below 17%.

The ranking tracks how much of an industry's work is information handling. The industries at the top move documents, analysis, advice and transactions. The industries at the bottom move goods, materials, crops and people.

What Each Industry Plans to Use AI For Differs Sharply

Adoption rates describe how many. The application mix describes what for, and it varies more than the headline rates suggest.

Health care is the clearest outlier. 50.8% of health care adopters plan to use speech or voice recognition, against 20.4% nationally, and it is the only industry where a voice application ranks first. Clinical dictation and note-taking are the obvious fit.

Retail leads on chatbots at 47.6%. Real estate and accommodation and food services both lead on marketing automation, at 51.0% and 48.5% against 23.4% nationally. Mining reports the highest data analytics figure at 72.4%.

Adoption Rises With Size, Except Among the Smallest Firms

Businesses with 100 or more employees plan to adopt at 37.5%, against 21.0% for those with 5 to 19. Businesses with 1 to 4 employees sit at 25.6%, above the small-firm band directly above them.

Refusal falls steadily with size: 57.0% among businesses with 1 to 4 employees, 52.1% at 5 to 19, 38.1% at 20 to 99 and 32.0% at 100 or more. That is a 25 point drop across the range.

Uncertainty moves the other way. 17.4% of the smallest businesses answered unknown against 30.5% of the largest. Larger organisations are less likely to rule AI out and more likely to be undecided, which is consistent with decisions that involve procurement, governance and more than one person.

Businesses Under Two Years Old Lead Those Over Twenty by 14.3 Points

32.8% of businesses two years old or younger plan to use AI, against 18.5% of businesses more than twenty years old.

The gradient runs cleanly in both directions. Adoption falls with age at every step: 32.8%, 31.1%, 27.5%, 18.5%. Refusal rises: 44.2%, 46.5%, 49.2%, 60.4%. Three in five businesses over twenty years old have ruled AI out for the coming year.

Newer businesses are also more likely to plan on chatbots, at 30.4% of adopters against 18.8% nationally, and on decision making systems at 24.0% against 14.0%.

Service Exporters Adopt at Three Times the Domestic-Only Rate

66.4% of businesses that exported services outside Canada plan to use AI, against 22.0% of businesses with no international activity.

The gap between service exporters and domestic-only businesses is 44.4 percentage points, a ratio of 3.0 to 1. Services traders sit well above goods traders on both directions of trade: 66.4% for service exporters against 32.1% for goods exporters, and 52.9% for service importers against 30.4% for goods importers.

Adoption by ownership

Among ownership groups, immigrant-owned businesses plan to adopt at 32.2%, visible minority-owned at 31.8% and woman-owned at 30.2%, all above the all-ownership rate of 25.5%. Businesses majority-owned by a person aged 65 or older sit at 18.2%, and First Nations, Métis or Inuit-owned businesses at 8.0%.

Where This Data Stops and Custom Research Begins

A national survey tells you how many businesses intend to adopt. It does not tell you what they will pay, what they will abandon, or what would move the 22.1% who cannot decide.

What we do at Bridging Local

We run custom research for businesses that need answers national datasets cannot provide. That means buyer interviews, concept and pricing tests, competitor and positioning analysis, surveys of the segment you are trying to reach, and market sizing built from the ground up rather than scaled down from national aggregates.

For technology vendors, consultancies and businesses evaluating AI internally, that usually looks like sizing the reachable market for a specific product, testing willingness to pay before launch, understanding what competitors are promising and delivering, or working out why a product is not converting at the price you set.

If you are building, buying or selling AI tools and need evidence rather than inference, that is the work we do. Custom surveys, in-depth interviews, competitive analysis and category deep dives, built around your specific question.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Canadian businesses use AI in 2026?

25.2% of Canadian businesses plan to use artificial intelligence to produce goods or deliver services over the next twelve months. 52.7% do not plan to, and 22.1% do not know. The figures describe intentions over the coming year rather than AI already deployed.

What do Canadian businesses use AI for?

Among businesses planning to use AI, the most common applications are data analytics at 41.7%, large language models at 39.3%, virtual agents or chatbots at 31.8%, text analytics at 29.0% and marketing automation at 23.4%. Applications involving machinery or images are far less common: robotics process automation at 5.1%, machine or computer vision at 4.6% and biometrics at 2.3%. Respondents could name more than one application.

Which Canadian industries are adopting AI fastest?

Professional, scientific and technical services lead at 54.8%, followed by information and cultural industries at 48.0%, finance and insurance at 35.5% and health care and social assistance at 33.8%. The lowest rates are in transportation and warehousing at 8.0%, agriculture at 13.2% and mining at 14.8%. The spread between the highest and lowest industry is 46.8 percentage points.

Do larger businesses adopt AI more than small ones?

Generally yes, with one exception. 37.5% of businesses with 100 or more employees plan to use AI, against 32.8% at 20 to 99, 21.0% at 5 to 19 and 25.6% at 1 to 4 employees. Outright refusal falls steadily with size, from 57.0% among the smallest businesses to 32.0% among the largest, a 25 point drop.

Which businesses are most likely to adopt AI in Canada?

Service exporters. 66.4% of businesses that exported services outside Canada plan to use AI, three times the 22.0% rate among businesses with no international activity. Service importers follow at 52.9%. Goods traders sit much lower, at 32.1% for exporters and 30.4% for importers, suggesting adoption tracks what a business sells rather than international exposure alone.

About This Analysis

This analysis was produced by Bridging Local (RC Research & Insights Inc.), a Vancouver-based market research and business consulting firm. We run primary research across B2B and B2C markets, including surveys, in-depth interviews, competitive analysis, category deep dives and go-to-market strategy.

If you are sizing a market, testing a concept, or working out where demand sits in your category, our market research services are built for exactly that.