The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reports…
The number of businesses currently using AI shows there’s potentially many workers to be trained. But much of the training needed is likely to be basic because most businesses that use AI don’t appear to be doing very much with it.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 22 percent of U.S. businesses used AI as of the end of July 2026. That’s a 4 percentage point increase since the beginning of the year.
Around the Ninth District, the share of businesses currently using AI ranges from 14 percent in North Dakota to 22 percent in Montana (see figure).
It seems like there’s interest…
Business demand for AI training appears strong, though much of it appears to be from businesses that aren’t sure about how to use the technology.
“What we’ve seen so far is the [client] organization wants to equip their people to use AI, but they don’t necessarily have an enterprise-wide strategy yet,” said the University of Minnesota’s Jahnke. “So they’re wanting to equip their employees with the basic knowledge with particular emphasis on how to use it ethically and a basic understanding of how AI works.”
And it’s growing…
Demand for training in AI skills is likely to grow with businesses’ growing use of the technology.
Over the next six months, the share of U.S. businesses using AI is expected to increase by 3 percentage points compared with July, based on Census Bureau surveys.
Among most Ninth District states, the expected increase is about 2 percentage points. Montana and North Dakota expected a decrease due to a growing number who expressed doubt that they would still be using AI.
Despite the technology’s limited impact on employment so far, there is a simmering fear in the public that massive job losses are not far off. Experts disagree on whether this is realistic, and where they land depends on how much artificial intelligence they think can replace human intelligence, and how soon.
Ayush Chopra, who developed a simulation of AI impact on the labor market while a grad student at MIT, said he doesn’t expect a “job catastrophe.” The simulation found that, among states, South Dakota had the highest concentration of jobs exposed to AI disruption, such as those in finance. By “exposure” he means that those jobs contain more tasks where AI can enhance human labor, not replace it.
If AI can improve productivity, that’s not a bad thing for South Dakota given the labor shortage, according to Hultman. The state’s unemployment rate in June was 2 percent, the lowest in the nation.