AI Chatbot Adoption 2026 Statistics (Updated September)

How many people use AI chatbots

1. 1

   49% of U.S. adults say they ever use AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, up from 33% in 2024.

   Source: Pew Research Center (June 2026), 2026 ^[1]

2. 2

   44% of U.S. adults report using ChatGPT, up from 34% a year earlier and more than double the share in 2023.

   Source: Pew Research Center (June 2026), 2026 ^[1]

3. 3

   57% of U.S. adults under 50 report using ChatGPT, about twice the share of adults 50 and older.

   Source: Pew Research Center (June 2026), 2026 ^[1]

4. 4

   As of late 2024, nearly 40% of the U.S. population aged 18 to 64 used generative AI, according to nationally representative surveys.

   Source: NBER Working Paper 32966 (Bick, Blandin and Deming), 2025 ^[2]

5. 5

   ChatGPT had been adopted by around 10% of the world's adult population by July 2025, according to an analysis of ChatGPT usage by OpenAI and Harvard economists.

   Source: NBER Working Paper 34255 (Chatterji et al.), 2025 ^[3]

6. 6

   ChatGPT reached 800 million weekly active users in October 2025, up from 500 million at the end of March 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.

   Source: TechCrunch, reporting OpenAI DevDay (October 2025), 2025 ^[4]

7. 7

   ChatGPT had a 79.4% share of AI chatbot referral traffic worldwide in August 2026, followed by Google Gemini at 10.9% and Perplexity at 4.31%.

   Source: Statcounter Global Stats (August 2026), 2026 ^[5]

8. 8

   Weekly use of generative AI tools across six countries grew from 18% to 34% between 2024 and 2025, according to the Reuters Institute's Generative AI and news report 2025.

   Source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, 2026 ^[6]

9. 9

   Weekly use of AI chatbots for news rose from 7% to 10% globally in a year.

   Source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, 2026 ^[6]

10. 10

    13% of U.S. adults use AI chatbots to get news.

    Source: Pew Research Center (June 2026), 2026 ^[1]

11. 11

    Non-work messages grew from 53% to more than 70% of all ChatGPT consumer usage between mid-2024 and mid-2025.

    Source: NBER Working Paper 34255 (Chatterji et al.), 2025 ^[3]

12. 12

    Practical guidance, seeking information and writing account for nearly 80% of ChatGPT conversations.

    Source: NBER Working Paper 34255 (Chatterji et al.), 2025 ^[3]

How many company websites run a chat widget

1. 13

   24.6% of Inc 5000 company homepages load one of 16 live chat widgets Installmap fingerprints (1,202 of 4,885), against 15.7% of unicorns, 11.8% of Y Combinator companies, 3.9% of the 1,572 Tranco top-10,000 homepages Installmap rendered and 2.3% of the Fortune 500 (11 of 472).

   Source: Installmap · rendered homepage fetches (ScrapingBee), September 2026 crawl · 4,885 Inc 5000, 1,000 unicorn, 5,386 YC, 1,572 Tranco top-10k and 472 Fortune 500 homepages

2. 14

   HubSpot Chat is the most common chat widget in all five lists counted here: 18.9% of Inc 5000 homepages (924 of 4,885), 11.0% of unicorns and 6.3% of Y Combinator companies.

   Source: Installmap · rendered homepage fetches (ScrapingBee), September 2026 crawl · 4,885 Inc 5000, 1,000 unicorn and 5,386 YC homepages

3. 15

   40 of the homepages Installmap crawled load a chatbot from an AI-first vendor such as Ada, Decagon, Sierra, Forethought or Chatbase: 0.3% of Inc 5000 companies (15 of 4,885), 0.2% of Y Combinator companies (11 of 5,386) and 0.7% of unicorns (7 of 1,000).

   Source: Installmap · stored rendered homepages from the September 2026 crawl, searched 2026-09-24 · 4,885 Inc 5000, 5,386 YC, 1,000 unicorn, 472 Fortune 500 and 1,572 Tranco top-10k homepages; 40 distinct domains · method

4. 16

   Sierra's agent script loads on the homepages of SiriusXM, Ulta Beauty, Lennar, Babylist and SaltPay, and Decagon's on Oura, Away and Eight Sleep.

   Source: Installmap · stored rendered homepages from the September 2026 crawl · 8 domains across the Fortune 500, Inc 5000, unicorn, YC and Tranco top-10k lists · method

5. 17

   Qualified, a B2B sales chat tool with an AI agent, is referenced on 7.1% of unicorn homepages (71 of 1,000), against 1.1% of the Inc 5000 (55 of 4,885).

   Source: Installmap · stored rendered homepages from the September 2026 crawl · 1,000 unicorn and 4,885 Inc 5000 homepages · method

How many workers use AI chatbots at work

1. 18

   38% of employed U.S. adults use AI chatbots for tasks at work.

   Source: Pew Research Center (June 2026), 2026 ^[1]

2. 19

   23% of employed U.S. respondents had used generative AI for work at least once in the previous week, and 9% used it every work day.

   Source: NBER Working Paper 32966 (Bick, Blandin and Deming), 2025 ^[2]

3. 20

   About 36% of occupations use AI for at least a quarter of their tasks, based on millions of conversations with Anthropic's Claude.

   Source: arXiv preprint 2503.04761 (Handa et al., Anthropic), 2025 ^[7]

4. 21

   57% of Claude usage for work tasks suggests augmentation of what people do, and 43% suggests automation.

   Source: arXiv preprint 2503.04761 (Handa et al., Anthropic), 2025 ^[7]

5. 22

   Most Danish employers in AI-exposed occupations have adopted chatbot initiatives, yet the study rules out effects on earnings or hours larger than 2% two years after ChatGPT launched.

   Source: NBER Working Paper 33777 (Humlum and Vestergaard), 2026 ^[8]

6. 23

   Around 80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by large language models, and about 19% of workers could see at least half of their tasks affected (an estimate of exposure, not adoption).

   Source: Science (Eloundou et al., GPTs are GPTs), 2024 ^[9]

7. 24

   With access to a large language model, about 15% of all U.S. worker tasks could be done significantly faster at the same quality (an estimate, not a measured adoption rate).

   Source: Science (Eloundou et al., GPTs are GPTs), 2024 ^[9]

How many businesses use AI

1. 25

   19.8% of U.S. businesses used AI in any business function in the two weeks ending May 3, 2026. The Census Bureau changed the question in November 2025 from AI use in producing goods or services to AI use in any business function.

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey (May 2026), 2026 ^[10]

2. 26

   37% of U.S. firms with at least 250 employees reported using AI, against less than 20% of firms with four or fewer employees.

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey (May 2026), 2026 ^[10]

3. 27

   The Information sector (39.7%) and Finance and Insurance (33.9%) had the highest AI use rates among U.S. businesses in May 2026; about 14% of retailers used AI.

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey (May 2026), 2026 ^[10]

4. 28

   Between 20% and 23% of U.S. businesses expected to be using AI within six months, in Census surveys from December 2025 to May 2026 (an expectation, not current use).

   Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey (May 2026), 2026 ^[10]

5. 29

   The share of U.S. firms using AI to produce goods or services rose from 3.7% to 5.4% between September 2023 and February 2024 in the Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey.

   Source: NBER Working Paper 32319 (Bonney et al.), 2024 ^[11]

How companies use chatbots in customer service

1. 30

   85% of customer service leaders planned to explore or pilot customer-facing conversational generative AI in 2025, in a Gartner survey of 187 service leaders.

   Source: Gartner (December 2024), 2024 ^[12]

2. 31

   44% of customer service leaders were exploring a customer-facing generative AI voicebot and 11% were already piloting one.

   Source: Gartner (December 2024), 2024 ^[12]

3. 32

   61% of customer service leaders say they have a backlog of knowledge articles to edit, the content their chatbots answer from.

   Source: Gartner (December 2024), 2024 ^[12]

4. 33

   Customer support agents given an AI assistant resolved 14% more issues per hour on average, and 34% more for novice and low-skilled agents.

   Source: The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, NBER w31161), 2025 ^[13]

5. 34

   51% of consumers say they prefer interacting with bots over humans when they want immediate service.

   Source: Zendesk (January 2026), 2026 ^[14]

6. 35

   48% of customers say it is getting harder to tell AI service agents from human ones.

   Source: Zendesk (January 2026), 2026 ^[14]

7. 36

   72% of CX leaders say they have trained staff on generative AI tools, but 55% of agents say they have received no training.

   Source: Zendesk (January 2026), 2026 ^[14]

8. 37

   82% of respondents in Tidio's survey would talk to a chatbot rather than wait for a human representative.

   Source: Tidio chatbot survey (March 2026), 2026 ^[15]

9. 38

   Almost 27% of shoppers in Tidio's study use chatbots daily and 34% a few times a week.

   Source: Tidio chatbot survey (March 2026), 2026 ^[15]

10. 39

    64% of respondents mostly or completely trust the information chatbots give them.

    Source: Tidio chatbot survey (March 2026), 2026 ^[15]

How much published text is written with AI chatbots

1. 40

   By late 2024, roughly 18% of U.S. financial consumer complaint text appears to be written with help from a large language model.

   Source: arXiv preprint 2502.09747 (Liang et al., Stanford), 2025 ^[16]

2. 41

   Up to 24% of the text in corporate press releases is attributable to large language models, and nearly 14% of United Nations press release content.

   Source: arXiv preprint 2502.09747 (Liang et al., Stanford), 2025 ^[16]

3. 42

   LLM-assisted writing accounts for just below 10% of job posting text at small firms, and more at younger firms.

   Source: arXiv preprint 2502.09747 (Liang et al., Stanford), 2025 ^[16]

4. 43

   Up to 17.5% of computer science papers show text modified by large language models, against up to 6.3% of mathematics papers and Nature portfolio papers.

   Source: arXiv preprint 2404.01268 (Liang et al., Stanford), 2024 ^[17]

Frequently asked questions

How many people use AI chatbots?

In the U.S., 49% of adults say they ever use AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, up from 33% in 2024 (Pew Research Center, 2026). Worldwide, ChatGPT reached about 10% of adults by July 2025 and 800 million weekly users by October 2025.

How many businesses use AI?

The Census Bureau's business survey put AI use in any business function at 19.8% of U.S. businesses in May 2026. The survey asks about any AI use, not chatbots alone, and its question changed in November 2025 from AI use in producing goods or services, so earlier readings such as 5.4% in February 2024 are not comparable. Large firms use AI more: 37% of firms with 250 or more employees, against less than 20% of the smallest firms.

How many company websites have a chatbot or live chat widget?

Installmap found a fingerprinted live chat widget on 24.6% of Inc 5000 homepages, 15.7% of unicorns, 11.8% of Y Combinator companies and 2.3% of the Fortune 500. HubSpot Chat is the most common in all five lists, at 18.9% of the Inc 5000.

How common are AI-first chatbot vendors such as Sierra, Decagon and Ada?

Installmap found one on 40 homepages across its five crawled lists: 0.3% of the Inc 5000 and 0.7% of unicorns. Sierra loads on SiriusXM, Ulta Beauty and Lennar; Decagon on Oura, Away and Eight Sleep.

Do customers want to use chatbots for customer service?

51% of consumers in a Zendesk survey prefer bots when they want immediate service, and 82% of Tidio's respondents would use a chatbot rather than wait for a human. Gartner found 85% of service leaders planned to explore or pilot customer-facing generative AI in 2025.

Sources

1. [1]Pew Research Center (June 2026). 2026.↑1 ↑2 ↑3 ↑10 ↑18
2. [2]NBER Working Paper 32966 (Bick, Blandin and Deming). 2025.↑4 ↑19
3. [3]NBER Working Paper 34255 (Chatterji et al.). 2025.↑5 ↑11 ↑12
4. [4]TechCrunch, reporting OpenAI DevDay (October 2025). 2025.↑6
5. [5]Statcounter Global Stats (August 2026). 2026.↑7
6. [6]Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026. 2026.↑8 ↑9
7. [7]arXiv preprint 2503.04761 (Handa et al., Anthropic). 2025.↑20 ↑21
8. [8]NBER Working Paper 33777 (Humlum and Vestergaard). 2026.↑22
9. [9]Science (Eloundou et al., GPTs are GPTs). 2024.↑23 ↑24
10. [10]U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey (May 2026). 2026.↑25 ↑26 ↑27 ↑28
11. [11]NBER Working Paper 32319 (Bonney et al.). 2024.↑29
12. [12]Gartner (December 2024). 2024.↑30 ↑31 ↑32
13. [13]The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, NBER w31161). 2025.↑33
14. [14]Zendesk (January 2026). 2026.↑34 ↑35 ↑36
15. [15]Tidio chatbot survey (March 2026). 2026.↑37 ↑38 ↑39
16. [16]arXiv preprint 2502.09747 (Liang et al., Stanford). 2025.↑40 ↑41 ↑42
17. [17]arXiv preprint 2404.01268 (Liang et al., Stanford). 2024.↑43

Method

We searched Google for AI chatbot adoption statistics, chatbot statistics and website chatbot statistics, read the statistics pages that ranked and the surveys they cite, and counted how many pages repeat each number. We then looked for research papers on chatbot and generative AI use (NBER working papers, journal articles and arXiv preprints) and took numbers from their abstracts. Each number was checked against the producer's page on September 24, 2026; Gartner's press release was read in the Wayback Machine because gartner.com blocks automated requests, and two numbers come from secondary reports and are marked. Surveys differ in who they ask (U.S. adults, employed adults, service leaders, a vendor's own respondents), so their percentages are not comparable. The Installmap numbers come from rendered homepage fetches: a headless browser loads each homepage, which finds far more chat scripts than a plain HTTP fetch because most widgets are injected by JavaScript. A widget that loads only after a click, on a help page or after a consent choice is missed, so every Installmap share is a floor. Live chat tools such as HubSpot Chat and Intercom can run an AI bot or a human inbox, and the page source does not show which.

Installmap numbers new on this page:

• 40 of the homepages Installmap crawled load a chatbot from an AI-first vendor such as Ada, Decagon, Sierra, Forethought or Chatbase: 0.3% of Inc 5000 companies (15 of 4,885), 0.2% of Y Combinator companies (11 of 5,386) and 0.7% of unicorns (7 of 1,000). Regex search of the stored rendered HTML for vendor script hosts: static.ada.support (Ada), decagon.ai/loaders (Decagon), sierra.chat (Sierra), solve-widget.forethought.ai (Forethought), yellowmessenger.com (Yellow.ai), chatbase.co/embed (Chatbase), cdn.voiceflow.com/widget (Voiceflow), cdn.botpress.cloud/webchat (Botpress). Every hit was read by hand; three were links, logos or sample code and were dropped. Domains not on the published list (redirect targets) are left out.
• Sierra's agent script loads on the homepages of SiriusXM, Ulta Beauty, Lennar, Babylist and SaltPay, and Decagon's on Oura, Away and Eight Sleep. Same search as the AI-first vendor count: sierra.chat and decagon.ai/loaders script URLs in the rendered homepage.
• Qualified, a B2B sales chat tool with an AI agent, is referenced on 7.1% of unicorn homepages (71 of 1,000), against 1.1% of the Inc 5000 (55 of 4,885). Regex search of the stored rendered HTML for js.qualified.com, which includes a few pages that only preconnect to the host.

All 43 statistics as a CSV: ai-chatbot-adoption-statistics.csv.

Cite this page

Installmap, “AI Chatbot Adoption 2026 Statistics (Updated September)”, updated September 2026, https://installmap.com/research/ai-chatbot-adoption-statistics

To cite one number, link its anchor: each statistic has one, for example https://installmap.com/research/ai-chatbot-adoption-statistics#stat-1.