We asked 5,076 people who work on their own (company size: just me), such as freelancers, solo founders and independent consultants 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
- Solo professionals are behind everyone else in the benchmark. 8% are leaders, against 14% of all respondents, and 74% are still early.
- The biggest blocker is picking the right tools (36%), followed by the skills gap (31%). More people here name budget: 7% against 6% across the benchmark.
- Their top goal is to save time (31%). More of them than average want to build an AI product: 15% against 9%.
- ChatGPT is the most used AI tool (81% of those who named a tool), then Claude (68%) and Gemini (50%). DeepSeek stands out: 3% use it, against 2% of all respondents.
- Leaders lean on Claude. 78% of leaders use it, against 63% of those still early.
How far along solo professionals are with AI
The largest share of solo professionals say they are “just exploring” (49%). 5% say AI is used across their company and 3% 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 solo professionals back
We asked for the single biggest blocker. Picking the right tools leads at 36%. If that is you too: shortlist tools by the job you need done.
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
What they want from AI in the next 90 days
31% want to save time, 27% want to build their AI skills and 21% want to grow revenue.
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
The AI tools solo professionals use
People named 3.3 AI tools each on average. These are the 12 most used, as a share of the 4,503 people here who named at least one. Compare any of them in our AI tool database.
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
What the leaders use differently
Leaders are the 403 solo professionals whose AI is rolled out to their team or used across their company. They named 4.0 tools each, against 3.1 for the 3,748 who are still early. These are the clearest differences.
| Tool | Leaders | Early | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | 78% | 63% | +14 pts |
| Perplexity | 24% | 16% | +8 pts |
| Gemini | 55% | 48% | +7 pts |
| Microsoft Copilot | 14% | 8% | +6 pts |
| DeepSeek | 7% | 3% | +4 pts |
| Gamma | 5% | under 1% | +4 pts |
- Share of each group who use the tool. Leaders: 375 people, early: 3,227 people.
Where they use AI at work
Writing comes first (67%), then research (57%) and personal productivity (51%). People could pick several areas.
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
- Asked July 20 to August 31, 2026: 2,176 answers.
Budget for a first AI project
36% are not sure yet. The most common amount named is under $500 (49%).
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
- Asked from September 1, 2026: 2,909 answers.
Who answered
49% decide, recommend or have a say in what their company buys.
Role
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
Top industries
- Solo professionals
- All respondents
Say in what their company buys
- Solo professionals
- 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.
“Most average business users don't understand what they've just allowed there, which is suddenly that thing can access all of that data.”
Cillian Kieran, CEO and Founder at Ethyca. Think before you click accept on an AI connector. Linking an assistant to your CRM, Stripe, QuickBooks or Shopify can quietly give it access to everything in those systems. Cillian describes how, over ten or twelve weeks of casual questions, a small store owner could move sensitive purchase and card data across boundaries it shouldn't cross without realizing it. Understand exactly what you are permitting before you connect a system, and limit access to what the task actually needs. Watch or read the episode.
“Orders coming to Shopify stores from AI are actually up 13x.”
Andrew McNamara, VP of Applied Machine Learning at Shopify. AI assistants are becoming a real sales channel. Orders reaching Shopify stores from AI are up 13 times, and searches that draw on a store's structured product catalog convert about twice as well as general AI search. If you sell online, make your catalog available to AI shopping agents, then check which AI questions lead to sales and where your products appear without converting. 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.
- Start with free tools. Hundreds of free AI tools in our database, sorted by use case.
- 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, Individual contributors, Consultants and advisors, Students and career switchers.
By company size: 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 5,076 people who work on their own (company size: just me), such as freelancers, solo founders and independent consultants.
- 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 4,503 people here who named at least one tool.
- Where people use AI was asked from July 20 to August 31, 2026 (2,176 answers here).
- Budget was asked from September 1, 2026 (2,909 answers here).
- 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.