We asked 3,244 people who are team members and specialists who do not manage people how they use AI at work. They answered The AI Report’s Where You Stand benchmark between July 20, 2026 and November 2, 2026. Here is how far along they are, what holds them back, what they want from AI next and which tools the most advanced teams use, compared with all 14,452 people in the benchmark.
Key findings
- Individual contributors are behind everyone else in the benchmark. 9% are leaders, against 14% of all respondents, and 75% are still early.
- The biggest blocker is picking the right tools (35%), almost tied with the skills gap (34%). More people here name results they can't trust: 7% against 6% across the benchmark.
- Their top goal is to save time (39%). More of them than average want to build an AI product: 12% against 9%.
- ChatGPT is the most used AI tool (77% of those who named a tool), then Claude (67%) and Gemini (47%).
- Leaders lean on Claude. 77% of leaders use it, against 62% of those still early.
How far along individual contributors are with AI
The largest share of individual contributors say they are “just exploring” (50%). 6% say AI is used across their company and 4% are rolling it out to their team.
- Just exploring
- Testing a few tools
- Using 1 to 3 tools for real
- Rolling out to their team
- Used across the company
- Helping others with AI
What holds individual contributors back
We asked for the single biggest blocker. Picking the right tools leads at 35%. If that is you too: shortlist tools by the job you need done.
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
What they want from AI in the next 90 days
39% want to save time, 30% want to build their AI skills and 14% want to grow revenue.
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
The AI tools individual contributors use
People named 3.1 AI tools each on average. These are the 12 most used, as a share of the 2,856 people here who named at least one. Compare any of them in our AI tool database.
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
What the leaders use differently
Leaders are the 301 individual contributors whose AI is rolled out to their team or used across their company. They named 3.6 tools each, against 2.9 for the 2,421 who are still early. These are the clearest differences.
| Tool | Leaders | Early | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | 77% | 62% | +15 pts |
| Microsoft Copilot | 19% | 9% | +11 pts |
| Power BI | 10% | 3% | +7 pts |
| Grammarly | 19% | 14% | +5 pts |
| Salesforce | 9% | 5% | +4 pts |
| DeepSeek | 5% | 2% | +4 pts |
| ChatGPT | 67% | 80% | -13 pts |
- Share of each group who use the tool. Leaders: 288 people, early: 2,059 people.
Where they use AI at work
Writing comes first (65%), then personal productivity (56%) and research (53%). People could pick several areas.
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
- Asked July 20 to August 31, 2026: 1,194 answers.
Budget for a first AI project
43% are not sure yet. The most common amount named is under $500 (42%).
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
- Asked from September 1, 2026: 2,056 answers.
Who answered
36% decide, recommend or have a say in what their company buys.
Company size
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
Top industries
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
Say in what their company buys
- Individual contributors
- All respondents
What leaders told The AI Report podcast
“About a third of content is not machine readable right now.”
Vivek Pandya, Director and Lead Insights Analyst, Adobe Digital Insights at Adobe. Check whether AI can actually read your website. Adobe's analysis of retail pages finds about a third of content is not machine-readable. Restructure and organize your content, including your home page, store locator, returns and FAQ pages, so it is clear to machines. Then make sure reviews, Reddit threads and social posts back up what your site claims, because AI agents cross-check before recommending you. Watch or read the episode.
“You understand that you are now delegating your work to AI. It's not another tool.”
Roy Mann, Co-founder at monday.com. Most of the shift is mental. A developer on Roy's team was frightened when an agent began shipping UI fixes faster than he could read the requests. A week later he was happy, because he had stopped competing with the agent and started operating it. Treat AI as work you delegate, not as a better search box. Watch or read the episode.
“Until you see examples, your brain doesn't come up with use cases.”
Andrew Warner, Founder at Mixergy. Be honest about the learning curve. Andrew says that right now, AI tools mostly don't save time on net. It can take a long time exploring to find something that saves ten minutes a day, but that exploring is how you learn. One way to find real uses is to get together with friends or colleagues and have them show what they've built. Watch or read the episode.
Next steps
- Shortlist tools by the job you need done. The AI Report tool database compares 5,500+ AI tools by use case and price.
- Learn why AI sounds right but is not always right. Dan Klein, CTO of Scaled Cognition, on the reliability problem holding AI back.
- Get a plan built for you. The AI Report Pro turns your benchmark answers into a 90-day AI plan, step by step.
How do you compare?
Answer the same nine quick questions as these 14,452 people. See which of five AI types you are, how you compare with readers like you, and get a free 30-day AI roadmap by email.
Free. You also get The AI Report, the five-minute AI briefing, every weekday. Unsubscribe anytime.
Compare with other groups
The full benchmark: AI at Work Benchmark 2026, with every industry, role and company size side by side.
By industry: Professional services, Healthcare, Software and tech, Education, Marketing and media, Manufacturing, Nonprofits and government, Financial services, Retail and e-commerce, Real estate, Legal.
By role: Executives and founders, Directors, Managers and team leads, Consultants and advisors, Students and career switchers.
By company size: Solo professionals, Small businesses (2 to 50), Mid-size companies (51 to 1,000), Large enterprises (1,001+).
About this data
These numbers come from The AI Report’s Where You Stand benchmark. Between July 20, 2026 and November 2, 2026, 14,452 people completed it. This page covers the 3,244 team members and specialists who do not manage people.
- Answers are self-reported. People chose their own industry, role, company size and stage.
- “Early” means just exploring or testing a few tools. “Leaders” means AI is rolled out to their team or used across their company.
- People could pick more than one tool, so tool shares add up to more than 100%. Tool shares are out of the 2,856 people here who named at least one tool.
- Where people use AI was asked from July 20 to August 31, 2026 (1,194 answers here).
- Budget was asked from September 1, 2026 (2,056 answers here).
- The role question changed on September 1, 2026. We grouped the old and new answers into six role groups.
- Percentages are rounded to whole numbers.
- We never publish individual answers. A group only gets a page with 100 or more people, and we only compare groups of 30 or more.
- People who take an AI newsletter's quiz are more interested in AI than the average worker, so read these numbers as a benchmark of people actively working on AI, not a national average.
Last updated November 2, 2026. To cite this page: The AI Report, AI at Work Benchmark 2026, theaireport.ai/tools/benchmark.