‘Data for Business’ is an effort of the Langley Chamber, in partnership with the Canadian Chamber, to bring our member reports, stats, and analysis on economic and business data to help inform business and investment decisions. Read our latest update below:

Generative AI represents a generational opportunity to prompt productivity by helping Canadian businesses, and their workers, accelerate the production and quality of goods and services. So why are 73% of businesses yet to consider integrating this transformative technology into their operations? 

New data and insights are available in a new report from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Lab on Generative AI, Prompting Productivity: Generative AI Adoption by Canadian Business.   

This report highlights the value Generative AI is creating for Canadian businesses and provide breakdowns of early adoption by geography, industry, business size and age. It forecasts when Generative AI adoption is likely to reach a tipping point and how much it could add to Canadian productivity. The report also discuss barriers that hold businesses back from adopting Generative AI and conclude by offering concrete recommendations for businesses and policymakers to accelerate adoption. 

Generative AI is poised to be a catalyst of positive change and productivity growth, and its increasing accessibility and applications leave little excuse for Canadian businesses to sit on the sidelines. Fortunately, some aren’t. Around 1 in 7 businesses (14%) are early AI adopters, with businesses in the information and cultural industry leading the way in adoption at 31%, followed by the professional services (28%) and finance and insurance (23%) industries.

Of the 14% of Canadians businesses that are already using or plan to use Gen AI, the dominant reason for doing so is not to replace workers, but to accelerate development of creative content (69%) and to increase automation in tasks without reducing employees (46%).
Interestingly, and probably comfortingly for today’s workers, only 13% of business using Generative AI specifically value it for automating tasks to replace employees.

Altogether, this report constitutes a novel, holistic and actionable examination of the state of Generative AI use by businesses in Canada, as well as the technology’s potential to prompt productivity growth for the benefit of all Canadians.

See the report highlights and read the full report > 

Join our next AI session on July 23 >