Small Business AI Use Hits 87%, Confidence Stalls at 5.3 Out of 10

A new Bluehost survey finds 87% of small business owners already use at least one AI tool. Yet they rate their own skill at using it a middling 5.3 out of 10, and just 20% call themselves highly confident.

More than half use AI every day, and 56% pay for at least one subscription, according to the web hosting and small-business platform’s inaugural State of Small Business AI Confidence report.

That gap between usage and skill is not confined to one company’s marketing report. Four other surveys published this year, run by a bank, an insurer, an investment bank and a workplace research firm, describe the same split. Confidence, not access to software, increasingly decides who turns AI into revenue and who just pays for it.

Four More Surveys Land on the Same Number

Bluehost surveyed 350 U.S. small business owners with one to 50 employees in May 2026, working with the research firm ListenLabs. The company frames its central finding as a new AI Confidence Divide separating results from guesswork, splitting owners who turn AI into results from owners still learning to use it well.

Three more 2026 surveys, built on different samples and methods, land on a similar shape.

A separate study found investment in AI technology jumped from 36% to 57% among small businesses in a single year, though 45% of workers still worry too much AI could hurt the company’s reputation. Bluevine’s survey found something similar in a different direction: 74% of owners are using or testing AI, but just 22% trust AI alone on low-level tasks without a human checking the work.

Where the Revenue Actually Splits

Bluehost’s own numbers show why the gap is worth tracking. Owners who rate themselves highly confident report revenue gains at nearly three times the rate of owners who don’t.

• 65% vs. 23% – revenue gains reported by highly confident owners compared with low-confidence owners.
• 55% vs. 27% – positive revenue impact among owners with more than two years of AI experience versus newer adopters.
• 72% vs. 20% – positive revenue impact among owners saving 16 or more hours a week with AI versus those saving just 1 to 3 hours.

Two years of practice roughly doubles the odds of a payoff. Saving real time does even more. Neither pattern has much to do with which tool an owner bought.

The Tasks Owners Still Won’t Hand Over

Bluehost’s report found just 6% of owners highly trust AI to write in their brand voice, which keeps a lot of that output behind a human editor before it reaches a customer. A separate 2026 outlook from Simply Business, an insurer that works with small firms, found just 10% of owners trust AI with their insurance decisions.

The caution tracks with what owners say worries them most.

• Accuracy and output quality – cited by roughly 31% to 36% of owners across the surveys as a leading concern.
• Data security – named by about a third of owners, up from roughly a quarter in 2025.
• Losing the human touch – about 29% worry AI erodes the personal relationships that keep a small business running.
• Cost – the least common complaint, cited by just 5% of owners in the Bluehost study.

Owners aren’t wrong to be careful.

It’s often wrong and I can’t trust it completely for even things like marketing. Everything sounds like AI slop.

One respondent said that in the study’s qualitative comments, according to the survey’s published findings.

One Chatbot Dominates the Small Business Toolkit

Most small business AI still runs through a single chat window. Specialized tools built for one job, marketing, SEO, accounting, sales, each show up in fewer than 15% of businesses, which means the owner is still the one copying answers into emails, listings and proposals by hand.

Do Small Business Websites Still Matter?

Yes, according to Bluehost’s data. About 34% of owners say their website became more important once they started using AI, while just 4% say the opposite. AI tools need something to read before they recommend a business, and a clear, structured website is still the clearest source available to them.

The trouble is that most owners haven’t acted on it. Just 13% of small businesses are actively optimizing their sites for AI search, 35% have heard of the idea but haven’t moved, 31% know it exists but don’t know where to start, and 22% first heard the concept in this very study. That leaves the bulk of small businesses unprepared at the exact moment AI-powered discovery is reshaping how customers find them. Nearly half, 47%, said they would treat it as a top priority the moment a competitor showed up first in AI search results.

That education gap is already drawing fresh investment. Pie, a startup building tools for smaller firms, raised $23.7 million to help small businesses win at AI search instead of chasing traditional Google rankings.

Agentic AI Is Still Mostly a Wish List

Awareness is high. Action is not. Bluehost found 79% of owners know what AI agents are, tools that act on their own without constant human direction, but only 16% have actually deployed one.

Where owners are willing to hand over control tells its own story. Top priorities for agent deployment include:

• Website and SEO updates
• Social media and Google advertising management
• Lead capture and appointment booking

Customer service and inventory management rank lower. Owners appear comfortable letting AI act alone on tasks that help a business get found, and far less comfortable when a mistake could reach a customer directly.

Washington’s Answer, and a Familiar Gap in Europe

Lawmakers have already noticed. A bipartisan bill called the AI for Main Street Act cleared the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year. It would direct the Small Business Administration and Small Business Development Centers to provide small business owners with AI training and outreach, and 85% of small business owners surveyed by Goldman Sachs said they back the AI for Main Street Act.

Todd Young, the Republican senator from Indiana who introduced the Senate companion bill, said it would provide “training, guidance, and support to ensure more American small businesses” are equipped to compete. That survey, of 1,256 alumni of Goldman Sachs’s 10,000 Small Businesses program conducted by Babson College and David Binder Research in early 2026, found 93% report a positive business impact from AI, yet only 14% have fully integrated it into core operations.

The same shape shows up on the other side of the Atlantic. Eurostat data shows EU adoption splits 55% large versus 17% small firms, with overall enterprise AI use reaching 19.95% in 2025, up from 13.48% the year before. The OECD found member-country firms using AI more than doubled in two years, from 8.7% in 2023 to 20.2% in 2025.

Bluehost says it plans a webinar series to help owners close the gap. The Senate companion bill has not yet reached a floor vote.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Bluehost AI Confidence Divide?

It’s the name Bluehost gave its central 2026 finding, a split between small business owners who turn AI into measurable results and those still learning to use it well. The company reached that finding by surveying 350 U.S. small business owners with one to 50 employees in May 2026 alongside the research firm ListenLabs, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

How Many Small Businesses Use AI Overall?

Estimates vary by survey design, but they cluster in a similar range. Bluehost put adoption at 87% in May 2026, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 Small Business Survey put it at 89%, up from just 36% in 2023.

Does AI Adoption Really Increase Revenue?

The data consistently says yes. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce found small businesses using AI are 2.3 times more likely to report revenue growth than non-users, and Salesforce research separately found 91% of small businesses using AI report measurable revenue increases.

Is Congress Helping Small Businesses Learn AI?

Yes. The bipartisan AI for Main Street Act, sponsored by Representatives Mark Alford of Missouri and Hillary Scholten of Michigan, passed the U.S. House earlier this year and would direct the Small Business Administration and Small Business Development Centers to provide AI training and outreach. Its Senate companion, introduced by Senators Todd Young of Indiana and Maria Cantwell of Washington, is still pending.

Do Small Businesses Tell Customers When AI Is Involved?

Rarely, and rarely openly. In Bluehost’s survey, 33% of owners said they never disclose AI’s role in customer-facing work, another 33% don’t use AI in customer-facing content at all, and only 8% always disclose it.