AI adoption statistics Canada 2026: 19.2% of businesses use AI, triple the 2024 rate

19.2% of Canadian businesses use AI, and 35.9% of workers use it on the job

Statistics Canada heard from 9,251 businesses between 1 April and 6 May 2026, and B.C. came out on top for the first time. We keep businesses and people in separate tables. A firm counts once, however many of its staff use AI, so the two can't be compared.

Businesses:

People:

The top province changed every year. Quebec led in 2024 at 9.4%, Ontario in 2025 at 13.3% and British Columbia in 2026 at 25.1%. B.C. gained 20 points, more than any other province. We lined the three years up ourselves from Statistics Canada's own tables, which the agency doesn't publish side by side.

What percentage of Canadian businesses use AI?

About one in five Canadian businesses use AI: 19.2% in the second quarter of 2026, per Statistics Canada's Canadian Survey on Business Conditions. That's up from 12.2% a year earlier and 6.1% in 2024. The agency heard from 9,251 businesses between 1 April and 6 May 2026 (StatCan analysis). Its question is narrow. It asks about AI used to make goods or deliver services, so an owner who drafts emails in ChatGPT may answer no.

Data analytics is the top use, named by 36.6% of the firms that use AI. Text analytics comes next at 34.5%, then chatbots and virtual agents at 28.2%. Large language models are at 24.8%, up from 19.1% a year before. AI changes how firms train and hire, too: 44.4% of the users changed training or staffing because of it, and 32.0% trained staff on AI.

Bigger firms use it more, though not by much. In 2026, 27.8% of businesses with 100 or more staff used AI, against 19.9% with 1 to 4 staff and 14.9% with 5 to 19. How many firms of each size Canada has is in our small business statistics for Canada. Firms aged 3 to 10 years led at 25.0%. Those over 20 years old trailed at 15.0%. And the gap between city and country is wide: 21.0% of urban firms, 9.9% of rural ones.

Plans point up. In the third quarter of 2026, 25.2% of businesses said they plan to use AI in the next 12 months, up from 14.5% a year before. But 52.7% had no plans at all. That third quarter run was the survey's last. Statistics Canada called it the "final iteration", and its new TechStat program starts publishing business AI data in 2027. Until then, 19.2% is the newest official business rate.

Why do Canadian AI adoption figures range from 19% to 93%?

Canadian surveys disagree because they ask different firms different questions. The Bank of Canada puts it plainly in a June 2026 staff paper: "AI adoption among Canadian firms remains at an early stage." Its survey found that 70% of the business leaders who answered use AI themselves for at least some of a typical work week, which counts people, not firms. Yet only 8% of firms use it significantly in operations. Another 21% use it moderately and 29% rarely. That's 58% using it in operations at all, by our sum. And 11% plan to start within a year.

BDC, the federal bank for small business, found that 30% of SMEs use generative AI and that those firms are 24% more productive. It surveyed 1,500 owners and decision makers in February 2026 on Forum Research's online panel, which it says isn't a probability sample. KPMG Canada's 93% comes from big companies. Every firm in its sample had at least $50 million in revenue, and 30% had more than $1 billion (KPMG). Only 31% had fully built generative AI into core operations. Just 2% said they see a return on it.

So quote the source with the number. Statistics Canada's 19.2% is the only one drawn from a random sample of employer businesses, so it's the one to use as a national rate.

Which provinces and industries use AI the most?

British Columbia has the highest business AI rate, at 25.1% in 2026. Quebec is second at 20.1% and Prince Edward Island third at 20.0%. Manitoba is lowest among the provinces at 13.1%, with Saskatchewan just above at 13.6%.

Ontario sits at 18.1%, a little under the national rate. We pulled each year from Statistics Canada tables 33-10-0825-01, 33-10-1004-01 and 33-10-1167-01. We left out the territories, where samples are small.

By industry, information and cultural firms lead at 42.3%. Finance and insurance follows at 40.4%, then professional, scientific and technical services at 32.4%. How accountants in that group use it is on our AI in accounting statistics. Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting is lowest at 4.5%.

Finance and insurance moved most, up 29.5 points from 10.9% to 40.4% in two years. Health care was next, from 5.9% to 30.0%. Wholesale trade barely moved, from 8.1% to 7.9%, and manufacturing held at 13.1% from 2025 to 2026.

How many Canadians use AI?

Nearly half of Canadian adults now use generative AI. CIRA, which runs the .CA domain, found that 46% of Canadian internet users had used a generative AI tool in the past year. That's up from 33% in 2025 and 16% in 2024. The Strategic Counsel asked 2,000 adults on an online panel for CIRA's 2026 Canadian Internet Trends report.

Weekly use is close to that. In a survey for Toronto Metropolitan University's Diversity Institute, 45% of Canadians said they use AI tools like ChatGPT or Copilot at least weekly, and 19% daily. Leger polled 1,700 adults from its panel between 14 and 27 April 2026. Age splits it hard. Among 18 to 24 year olds, 69% use them weekly. Among those 75 and older, it's 13%.

Leger's own poll in August 2025 found that 57% of Canadians had used an AI tool, up from 47% in March 2025 (Leger). It was 83% of those aged 18 to 34 and 34% of those 55 and older. Leger asked 1,518 adults from 22 to 25 August. Of those who'd used AI, 73% had used a chatbot such as ChatGPT. Which chatbots those are is on our AI chatbot market share page, and our ChatGPT statistics cover the biggest one.

Microsoft counts from its own telemetry. Its AI Economy Institute put Canada at 38.5% of the working-age population using AI in the second quarter of 2026, up from 37.3% in the first.

Search is the top use. CIRA found 52% of users treat AI as a search engine, 42% use it to experiment and 35% to write for personal use. Only 19% always check what it tells them against another source. And 56% say they're concerned about generative AI, against 26% who are excited. Among non-users, 37% say they don't trust it.

How many Canadian workers use generative AI at work?

Just over a third of Canadian workers do. In March 2026, 35.9% of workers aged 15 to 69 had used generative AI tools in their main job over the past 12 months, Statistics Canada found in a Labour Force Survey supplement. Counting any AI or automation tool, 41.6% had. And 93.4% knew generative AI tools existed.

It depends on the job. Workers in professional, scientific and technical services led at 65.6%, then finance, insurance and real estate at 59.2% and education at 53.0%. Accommodation and food services was lowest at 16.3%. Senior managers used it most of any occupation, at 75.1%. Public sector staff used it more than private sector staff, 41.2% against 33.4%.

Most users use it often but lightly. 31.4% of users said they use it daily and 38.3% a few times a week. Yet only 11.6% use it for most or almost all of their tasks. Of the workers who don't use it, 56.0% said it doesn't apply to their work.

Use climbed fast before that. Statistics Canada's Canadian Survey on Working Conditions found that generative AI use at work rose from 17% in September 2024 to 30% in July 2025 (The Daily). It's a different survey, so don't read 30% to 35.9% as one trend line. KPMG Canada's survey of 2,239 employees put it at 51% in August 2025 (KPMG). Statistics Canada planned its next round of worker questions for September 2026.

Is Canada behind on AI adoption?

On business use, Canada is roughly level with the US and the EU average, and well behind the Nordic countries. Treat the comparison as rough. No two statistics agencies ask the same question.

The US figure comes from the Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey (Census). The Bureau broadened its question in November 2025 to AI used "in any business function", which counts more firms than Canada's question does. Eurostat's rates skip firms with fewer than 10 staff, while Canada's rate includes them (Eurostat).

Canadians themselves use AI more than Americans do. Microsoft put Canada at 38.5% in the second quarter of 2026 and the US at 33.0%. The UK (43.7%), Australia (40.7%) and France (49.6%) are ahead, though. South Korea passed Canada in the second quarter, which dropped it from 15th to 16th.

Canada doesn't lag on investment. It drew $4.28 billion (US) in private AI investment in 2025, fifth in the world, and $19.59 billion since 2013, fourth, per the Stanford AI Index 2026. It had 79 newly funded AI companies in 2025. Firms that build AI here, rather than buy it, can claim the SR&ED tax credit: 35% on up to $6 million of qualifying spending for a Canadian-controlled private corporation.

Ottawa wants 60% of businesses using AI by 2034. The federal AI for All strategy, launched on 4 June 2026, set that goal from a 12% baseline, the rate for mid 2024 to mid 2025. Statistics Canada had published 19.2% eight days before. To reach 60% by 2034 from there, the rate has to climb about 5.1 points a year. It rose 6.1 points in the year to 2025 and 7.0 points in the year to 2026, by our arithmetic.

What stops Canadian businesses from using AI?

Most businesses that skip AI say it doesn't fit what they do. In the second quarter of 2026, 40.0% said AI isn't relevant to the goods or services they sell, and 23.0% said nothing limits their use. Among named barriers, cybersecurity or privacy concerns led at 13.4%, ahead of cost at 10.6%.

Bigger firms worry more about privacy. 30.0% of businesses with 100 or more staff named it as a barrier, against 11.6% of those with 1 to 4. What AI tools keep and train on is covered in our AI privacy statistics.

The third quarter told the same story. Of the businesses with no plans to use AI, 79.1% said it isn't relevant to them. 10.8% cited privacy or security, and 9.9% said they don't know enough about what AI can do. The Bank of Canada heard the same from its firms: lack of usefulness was the most cited reason for not adopting.

How we compiled these numbers

We opened every figure at its source on 15 October 2026. The sources are Statistics Canada releases and data tables, the Bank of Canada, BDC, KPMG Canada, CIRA, Leger, Toronto Metropolitan University, Microsoft, Eurostat, the US Census Bureau, Stanford and the federal strategy itself. We downloaded the three Statistics Canada tables behind the provincial chart and lined up the same question across 2024, 2025 and 2026. The multiples in the chart are our arithmetic.

We kept business and personal use apart, because a firm and a person aren't the same unit. We dropped figures we couldn't open at their origin, older figures that newer ones replace (a 4% rate from a 2023 study, for one), and strategy numbers with no named source. We also left out the territories, whose samples are small. Every number, its wording at the source and the URL are in our research log.

How to cite these AI adoption statistics

You're free to use any figure or table on this page with a link back to it. Please credit the original source for numbers that came from someone else, too. A plain credit line works:

Source: Whizi Research, "AI adoption statistics Canada 2026: 19.2% of businesses use AI, triple the 2024 rate", whizi.io/resources/ai-adoption-statistics-canada, updated October 2026.

More from the same series: AI in education statistics and AI subscription statistics.