IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/24-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tracking Firm Use of AI in Real Time: A Snapshot from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Kathryn Bonney
  • Cory Breaux
  • Catherine Buffington
  • Emin Dinlersoz
  • Lucia Foster
  • Nathan Goldschlag
  • John Haltiwanger
  • Zachary Kroff
  • Keith Savage

Abstract

Timely and accurate measurement of AI use by firms is both challenging and crucial for understanding the impacts of AI on the U.S. economy. We provide new, real-time estimates of current and expected future use of AI for business purposes based on the Business Trends and Outlook Survey for September 2023 to February 2024. During this period, bi-weekly estimates of AI use rate rose from 3.7% to 5.4%, with an expected rate of about 6.6% by early Fall 2024. The fraction of workers at businesses that use AI is higher, especially for large businesses and in the Information sector. AI use is higher in large firms but the relationship between AI use and firm size is non-monotonic. In contrast, AI use is higher in young firms although, on an employment-weighted basis, is U-shaped in firm age. Common uses of AI include marketing automation, virtual agents, and data/text analytics. AI users often utilize AI to substitute for worker tasks and equipment/software, but few report reductions in employment due to AI use. Many firms undergo organizational changes to accommodate AI, particularly by training staff, developing new workflows, and purchasing cloud services/storage. AI users also exhibit better overall performance and higher incidence of employment expansion compared to other businesses. The most common reason for non-adoption is the inapplicability of AI to the business.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathryn Bonney & Cory Breaux & Catherine Buffington & Emin Dinlersoz & Lucia Foster & Nathan Goldschlag & John Haltiwanger & Zachary Kroff & Keith Savage, 2024. "Tracking Firm Use of AI in Real Time: A Snapshot from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey," Working Papers 24-16, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2024/adrm/ces/CES-WP-24-16.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.