By Andrew Miller
In the first quarter of 2026, the Voice of Main Street poll asked small business owners whether they used any AI tools at all. Thirty-six percent said they didn’t.
When the poll asked again this summer, just 20% said they didn’t use any AI tools.
The poll comes from Small Business Majority, a nonprofit advocacy group that surveys entrepreneurs in its network once a quarter. The network leans toward women- and minority-owned businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
The latest round surveyed 222 owners between August 6 and September 8. Sixty-two percent identified as female, and a third reported less than $100,000 in annual revenue.
The same poll found those businesses under pressure. Seventy-three percent of owners said their expenses rose over the past three months, the highest share since the survey began in early 2025.
On revenue, 40% said theirs fell and 35% said it stayed the same.
The poll didn’t ask owners why they started using AI or what they spend on it. Small Business Majority sees it as one way owners are adapting to a hard economy.
Owners did weigh in on how AI should be regulated. Fifty-nine percent said they’d prefer a federal law that sets minimum protections nationwide while letting states pass stronger ones. Only 18% wanted a single national standard that replaces state AI laws.
Nearly every owner surveyed (96%) said it’s important that a national AI law include data privacy protections, putting limits on how developers can collect, store, and use sensitive information.
Six months ago, more than a third of owners in the poll weren’t using AI at all.
Now four in five are, and nearly all of them want rules on what it does with their data.
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