The Federal Reserve Board published a FEDS Note reviewing survey-based evidence on how widely artificial intelligence, including generative AI, is being used in the workplace. The note finds that headline adoption rates differ substantially across surveys, but the available time series evidence consistently points to rapid growth in both firm and worker uptake. Reviewing 16 surveys largely fielded from late 2023 to mid-2024, the note reports firm-level AI adoption estimates ranging from fewer than 5 percent in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) using a firm-weighted two-week lookback, to around 40 percent in other firm surveys. It highlights how measurement choices can explain much of the dispersion, including firm-weighted versus employment-weighted results (BTOS also yields a 20 percent estimate when employment-weighted and using a six-month lookback with more detailed prompts), differences in question framing, and the tendency of some surveys to skew toward larger firms. Worker-level surveys generally show 20 to 40 percent of workers using AI at work, with far higher rates among programmers, and the note flags monitoring frictions where employees may use AI without employer awareness (29 percent in one survey). For the limited set of surveys with repeated waves, reported annualized growth rates are high, including 78.4 percent in BTOS and 145 percent in Pew’s worker survey, supporting the conclusion that adoption is accelerating even if level estimates differ.

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