Government · UK · Office for National Statistics
29% of UK Businesses Now Use AI: ONS June 2026
Nearly three in ten UK businesses now use artificial intelligence, and the tools they reach for first are the ones marketers already live in: text and image generation. New ONS data shows adoption climbing fastest among the largest firms.
Source published Summarised
Key findings at a glance
- 29% of UK businesses used at least one AI technology in June 2026, up 8 percentage points on June 2025
- 49% AI adoption among businesses with 250 or more employees, up 13 percentage points in a year
- 17% of businesses used large language models to generate text, the single most common AI use
- 14% of businesses used AI to create visual content, the second most common use
- 31% of businesses were concerned about international conflict disrupting their supply chains over the next year
- 64% of businesses reported some concern about energy prices in late June 2026
- 68% of businesses reported some concern about fuel prices in late June 2026
- 32% of businesses were concerned about the impact of climate change on their business, up 5 points since March 2026
- 95% of businesses were trading in late June 2026, with 87 percent fully trading
What the report covers
The Office for National Statistics published Wave 159 of its Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) on 2 July 2026, covering the fortnight from 15 to 28 June. BICS is a voluntary survey of UK businesses with 10 or more employees, and each wave tracks financial performance, workforce, prices, trade and resilience. This wave focused on supply chains, energy prices, climate concern and artificial intelligence.
The standout for anyone in marketing is AI. Nearly three in ten businesses (29%) reported using at least one AI technology in June, up 8 percentage points on a year earlier and continuing a steady three-year climb. Adoption is far higher among large employers, at 49% for firms with 250 or more staff. The most common uses map directly onto marketing work: 17% of businesses used large language models to generate text and 14% used AI to create visual content, both up more than 11 points since the question was introduced in September 2023. It is a business echo of the consumer trend we covered when 74% of UK teenagers reported using AI every week.
The wider mood was cautious rather than fearful. Trading held up, with 95% of businesses active and 87% fully trading. Concern about energy and fuel prices stayed high, at 64% and 68% respectively, while worry about international conflict hitting supply chains eased to 31% from a spring peak but sat well above the level of a year ago.
What this means for UK marketers
The headline for marketers is not that AI is coming, it is that your clients and competitors are already using it, and unevenly. With 29% of businesses on board but 49% of large firms, the adoption gap is now a competitive gap. Smaller UK businesses that have not yet put AI into their content, campaign or customer workflows are increasingly the exception, and that has practical consequences for how agencies pitch and price the work.
Text generation leading at 17% matters most. It means a rising share of web copy, product descriptions, ad variants and email sequences are being produced with LLMs. Two things follow. First, volume is cheap now, so differentiation shifts to judgement: strategy, brand voice, original data and genuine expertise are what a machine cannot copy from a prompt. Second, search and AI assistants are learning to discount generic, templated text, which raises the bar for anything meant to rank or be cited. The visual content figure of 14% points the same way for design and social. This is the demand-led, quality-first approach we build into client plans through our digital marketing services.
For businesses selling AI-enabled products or services, the data is a green light: buyers are familiar with the tools and the language, so the education burden in campaigns is lower than it was even a year ago. Lead with outcomes and proof rather than novelty. And for anyone setting budgets, the survey lands alongside a clear spending signal we reported on separately in how CMOs are budgeting for AI in 2026: the firms seeing returns are the ones that moved from experiments to scaled, governed use. Adoption on its own is not the win. Applying it to work that actually drives revenue is.
How they got the data
The figures come from Wave 159 of the ONS Business Insights and Conditions Survey, live from 15 to 28 June 2026. This wave drew a sample of 38,637 businesses and received 10,311 responses, a response rate of 26.7%. Results are weighted estimates and cover UK businesses with 10 or more employees, excluding sectors such as agriculture, finance and public administration. BICS is voluntary and its questions change wave to wave, so the ONS classes it as official statistics in development and advises caution when using the data.
Percentages here are point estimates subject to sampling variability, and the ONS publishes confidence intervals alongside each release. Fuller detail on coverage, weighting and limitations sits in the ONS quality and methodology information.
Government · UK
Read the full report
From Office for National Statistics · published 02/07/2026