WSI has opened its 2026 AI Business Insights Survey, asking business owners whether their AI strategy has kept pace with adoption. This is the third consecutive year WSI has conducted the survey, examining AI strategy, governance, skills, and search visibility across businesses globally.
WSI launches 2026 AI Business Insights Survey for third consecutive year.
2024 survey: 72% said AI could help meet business goals.
2025 survey: 81% believed AI could help, but only 40% completed formal AI training.
78% of managers and 77% of employees already use AI tools daily.
Survey covers strategy, governance, skills, AI search visibility, and measurable results.
Participants receive benchmark against similar organizations by size, industry, and region.
Confidence in AI continues to outpace how prepared businesses are to use it effectively. In WSI's 2024 research, 72% of respondents said AI could help them meet their business goals. By 2025, that number had climbed to 81%, yet only 40% of business owners had completed any formal AI training, even as their own managers (78%) and employees (77%) were already using AI tools day to day. The updated 2026 survey looks at businesses across five areas: how coordinated their AI strategy actually is, who owns AI governance and risk, how employees are building AI skills, how well they understand and manage their visibility in AI search, and whether AI is producing results they can measure.
"AI adoption isn't the interesting question anymore," said Valerie Brown-Dufour, President of WSI. "Every business can already say yes to it. The real test is whether that yes turns into a plan someone owns, whether people know what to do with the tools they've been handed, and whether a customer looking for a business like yours can actually find you. That's the difference between the businesses getting ahead this year and the ones still catching up."
About WSI
Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, WSI is a leading global network of digital marketing and AI consultants: a community of agencies, each rooted in its local market and backed by knowledge shared across the network. For more than 30 years, WSI has been a strategy-first partner to businesses through every major shift in digital, from search to AI, pairing practical strategy with hands-on execution rather than one-off campaigns. Guided by its mission to unlock a world of possibility for those it serves, WSI helps businesses use digital and AI to strengthen the people and relationships behind them, not replace them. That belief is the heart of its tagline: Embrace Digital. Stay Human.
