A new report tracking real transaction data from Chase Business Banking has found that small business AI adoption is not just growing — it’s accelerating faster than any major technology in modern history. The first paper in JPMorganChase Institute’s “Small Business in the Age of AI” research series, published in June 2026, offers something rare: not another survey, but hard payment data showing exactly what small businesses are actually buying.
The report, authored by researchers Chris Wheat, Chi Mac, and Andrea Passalacqua, analyzed Chase Business Banking transactions tracking payments to AI services from 2019 through 2025. The conclusion? Small businesses are going all-in on AI — and the employers among them are moving even faster than the rest.
What This Actually Means
The headline finding is simple: AI adoption among small businesses has shown a steady upward trend since 2019, with a sharp jump beginning around 2023. That lines up almost exactly with the release of ChatGPT and the flood of affordable AI tools that followed.
More interesting is what the data shows about how businesses are using AI. In 2019, 89% of small businesses paying for AI services were paying for exactly one. By 2025, that number dropped to 72%. The share paying for two or more AI tools rose significantly, and those paying for three or more jumped from under 1% to 9%.
In plain English: small businesses aren’t dipping a toe in. They’re building AI stacks. According to SBE Council’s own annual Small Business Technology Use Survey, the median number of AI tools used by small business employers is now five.
The report also found that AI is spreading from early use cases (mostly marketing, customer relationship management) into what it calls “broader operational deployment.” That’s not just chatbots writing email subject lines. That’s AI touching inventory, scheduling, customer service, financial planning, and more. As the JPMorganChase researchers put it, small businesses have transitioned “from targeted experimentation to broader operational deployment.”
The other standout: AI is spreading faster than the internet did. According to the report, small business AI adoption has outpaced “previous general-purpose technologies, which historically required decades to achieve comparable penetration.” Two reasons explain this — low-cost subscription pricing replaced the high capital costs that slowed PC and internet adoption, and cloud delivery eliminated the technical expertise barriers that used to keep small operators out.
The Numbers Behind It
The data points in this story come directly from the JPMorganChase Institute report:
- AI adoption among small businesses has grown steadily from 2019 to 2025, with a notable acceleration around 2023
- Firms paying for only one AI service dropped from 89% in 2019 to 72% by 2025
- Firms paying for three or more AI services jumped from under 1% to 9% over the same period
- SBE Council’s 2026 Small Business Technology Use Survey found that 82% of small business employers have adopted at least one AI tool, with a median of five tools in use
For broader context, we’ve covered what separates the small businesses getting real results from AI versus the ones just paying for subscriptions they barely use. The gap is significant, and it comes down to how you deploy — not just whether you subscribe.
The SBA also tracks AI adoption as a core part of the resource toolkit for small businesses, and the pattern the JPMorganChase data shows matches what SBA outreach programs are seeing on the ground: a fast-moving shift from “curious about AI” to “actively building with it.”
The Hustler’s Library Take
The fact that this data comes from actual payments — not survey responses — matters a lot. When someone tells a pollster they “use AI,” it might mean they opened ChatGPT twice. When they’re paying for three or more AI services, that’s deliberate. That’s a stack. That’s a business that’s decided AI is operational infrastructure, not a novelty.
The shift from one tool to five tools is also the shift that separates the businesses winning right now from the ones still figuring it out. Marketing automation is table stakes. The businesses pulling ahead are using AI to audit their own operations, find the fat in their workflows, and eliminate it without adding headcount.
If you’re still running one AI tool and calling yourself “AI-enabled,” the data says you’re already behind the median employer.
What You Should Do
The JPMorganChase report is a signal to act on, not just read about. Here’s what the data is telling you to do:
- Audit your current AI use. What tools are you actually paying for? Are you using them? Many small business owners are subscribed to tools they treat as monthly donations. Start with a time audit to find where you’re still doing things manually that AI could handle.
- Expand beyond marketing AI. The report shows early AI adoption was concentrated in marketing. That’s the crowded lane. The businesses pulling ahead right now are using AI for operations, customer service, financial analysis, and scheduling — not just copy.
- Build a stack, not a subscription. The data shift from one tool to five is real. Think about what an AI tool in each department of your business would look like: marketing, ops, customer service, finance, research. Even a one-person business has all five of those functions.
- Don’t wait for a cheaper version. The report specifically notes that one reason AI is spreading so fast is that it’s already low-cost. The barrier is decision-making, not price. The businesses using five tools today aren’t bigger or richer than you — they just started earlier.
The JPMorganChase Institute report referenced in this post is available through SBE Council’s analysis here and the original JPMorganChase Institute report here.
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