Goldman Sachs Report: Less Than 19% of Companies Have Adopted AI, But Users Save an Hour Per Day

According to the Goldman Sachs AI Adoption Tracker released in March 2026, less than 19% of U.S. establishments have adopted artificial intelligence. This figure has remained essentially flat from the previous month, suggesting that AI has yet to reach a tipping point to become a standard workplace tool. However, the report also highlights significant productivity gains for companies that have embraced the technology.

Enterprise workers who use AI are saving an average of 40 to 60 minutes per day, according to data from OpenAI dated December 2025. Furthermore, 75% of these users report that they can now complete tasks they previously couldn't do at all. This indicates that AI is not just a time-saving tool but also a catalyst for enhancing the quality of work. Goldman Sachs economists noted, "We continue to observe large impacts on labor productivity in the limited areas where generative AI has been deployed." Academic studies suggest an average productivity uplift of 23%, while company anecdotes imply even larger efficiency gains of around 33%.

The adoption rate varies significantly by company size. Firms with more than 250 employees report an AI adoption rate of 35.3%, more than double that of smaller establishments. However, smaller businesses are beginning to close the gap, with companies of 20 to 49 employees seeing a 2.1 percentage point increase in adoption to 21.5%. The leading sectors for adoption are information services, professional services, finance and insurance, and education, with computing and web hosting firms topping the list at 60%.

Barriers to adoption remain, including insufficient employee skills, data security concerns, and difficulty identifying the right use cases. Despite these challenges, a Bain & Company survey found that over 80% of reported AI use cases now meet or exceed expectations. This suggests that for many companies, the risk of waiting to adopt AI may be greater than the risk of moving forward. As the productivity gap widens between early adopters and laggards, the pressure to integrate AI into business operations is set to intensify.