November 4, 2026
Ninety-Three Percent Expect Growth. The AI Users Can Measure Why.
Per a Nov 3 small-business report, 93% of owners expect growth over the next year, 61% already use AI — and 90% of those users report a measurable positive impact. What "measurable" means for a service business buying AI.
Per a Nov 3 small-business report, 93% of small-business owners expect moderate to significant growth over the next year, and 68% are on track to meet or beat their 2026 profit plan. The report — based on responses from 860 small businesses with working capital loans, surveyed September 16–28, 2026, and over 3.95 million applications for working capital financing during the past 15 months — is a confidence survey. Buried inside it is the more useful story: what the owners who use AI say it is doing for them.
The AI numbers, exactly as reported
- 61% of small businesses report using AI.
- Among users, 90% report a measurable positive impact.
- 39% of users cite improved marketing performance and fewer errors.
Read those three lines together. Adoption is now the majority position, not the experiment. And the users are not describing novelty — they are describing measurement: marketing that performs better, errors that happen less. That is the vocabulary of operations, not of hype.
Two disciplines apply before anyone builds a plan on this data. First, the survey does not claim AI caused the growth expectations; confidence and AI use are travelling together, and the report does not separate them. Second, the respondents are businesses active enough to hold working-capital loans — a working sample of operating businesses, not a census of every firm. Neither caveat empties the finding. They tell you how to use it: as a benchmark for what measured use looks like, not as a promise.
What the rest of the report says about the year
The context around the AI findings is a year being run carefully:
- Inflation is the leading concern at 36%, ahead of cash flow at 28% — a concern easing for a second straight quarter — and revenue at 17%.
- 75% of small businesses bypassed traditional banks for capital, and median loan inflows from non-bank digital lenders were up 11% year over year.
- Median monthly revenue of loan applicants rebounded 6% from the second quarter, and the revenue-to-expense ratio held above 100%.
Owners expecting growth in that environment are not expecting the environment to hand it to them. They are funding it differently, watching cash flow closely, and — in the majority — running AI somewhere in the business with a result they can name.
Why "measurable" is the buying standard
For a contractor, a home-services firm, or any local service business, the difference between AI that pays and AI that decorates is whether a number moves that the owner already watches. The jobs with numbers attached are not mysterious:
- Calls answered and jobs booked — the front line, where a missed call is a measurable loss and a booked job is a measurable gain.
- Follow-ups completed the same day — quotes chased while the customer still remembers the conversation.
- Errors caught before the customer sees them — the 39% finding, translated: confirmations, details and paperwork checked by a system that does not get tired at 6pm.
A tool that cannot be attached to one of those numbers will join the other subscriptions. A system wired into one of them produces exactly what 90% of users in this report describe: a measurable positive impact, in the owner's own ledger.
The practical takeaway
- Choose one job with a number on it. "Every call answered and booked" is measurable. "We use AI" is not.
- Write the before-number down. Calls missed per week, follow-ups sent per quote, errors per month — you cannot report a measurable impact you never baselined.
- Review the number weekly, keep or cut honestly. That weekly review is the entire difference between the 90% and everyone else.
Hear what measurable sounds like on a live call: +1 866-476-5928 — a free 2-minute demo of Grace AI, the Scale Matrix AI receptionist. Scale Matrix AI puts AI voice agents and workflow systems to work for contractors, home services, local businesses, and other service businesses: AI Automations That Give You 10 Hours Back Every Week.