TL;DRA new ONS survey shows UK business AI adoption has risen from 12% to 35% since 2023, but the average adopter uses only 1.6 AI tools. Scott Pope of Nexthink argues the gap between adoption and transformation is a culture and visibility problem, not a technology one.
Three years ago, roughly one in eight UK businesses with ten or more employees reported using artificial intelligence; today, the Office for National Statistics puts that figure at around one in three, a near-tripling that reflects how quickly AI has moved from specialist tool to mainstream workplace technology. The numbers tell a compelling story of expansion.
They also reveal its limits. The average adopting business has gone from using 1.4 AI technologies to 1.6 over the same period, a gain so modest it barely registers as progress.
What businesses are actually using
Large language models are the most widely deployed AI category among UK businesses in June 2026, used by 18% of firms. Visual content creation tools came second at 16%, followed by data processing using machine learning at 12% and image processing at 6%.
