The adoption of new technology like robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) had little impact on the number or skills of workers that businesses employ, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 Annual Business Survey (ABS).

The ABS surveys employer businesses (those with at least one paid employee) on many aspects of business ownership including why and when they became owners, how they manage their finances and how technology impacts their workforce.

Businesses most often reported their “number of workers did not change overall” between 2020 and 2022 after adopting any of the five technologies the ABS tracked: AI, specialized software, robotics, cloud-based tech or specialized equipment (Figure 1).

When these technologies did have an impact, all (except robotics) were reportedly more likely to increase than decrease worker numbers.

There was no statistically significant difference between the number of workers increased (9.5%) or decreased (8.1%) by robotics.

When compared, none of the technologies significantly increased worker numbers more than any other.

AI (40.7%), specialized equipment (50.2%) and robotics (56.6%) largely had no overall impact on worker’s scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills (Figure 3).

When a technology did alter skills of STEM workers, it was more likely to boost than diminish them — with robotics (20.7%) and AI (22.1%) the most likely.

Cloud-based technology and specialized software were most often found “not applicable” to STEM worker skills (40.9% and 41.6%, respectively) or to have caused no change overall (44.4% and 44.9%, respectively). There were no statistically significant differences between these two impact categories and technologies.

Improving the quality or reliability of processes or methods was the most common motivating factor for businesses to adopt cloud-based technology (51.8%), specialized software (49.8%) and AI (45.8%) between 2020 and 2022 (Figure 4).

Specialized equipment and robotics were the only categories in which improving processes or methods was not the top motivating factor.

The top reason cited for adopting specialized equipment was to improve the quality or reliability of goods or services (49.8%).

Businesses used robotics to automate tasks performed by human labor (50.8%), improve the quality or reliability of goods and services (41.8%), and improve the quality or reliability of processes or methods (43.6%). The differences between these motivations were not statistically significant.

Businesses used AI at a higher rate (68.0%) than other technologies from 2021 to 2022.

But they adopted other surveyed technologies at a higher rate from 2016 to 2020:

• Cloud-based (40.0%).
• Specialized software (27.0%).
• Specialized equipment (23.6%).

Adoption of robotics technology remained relatively steady, ranging from 23.6% to 26.9% between 2016 and 2022 (with no significant difference between these shares).

Most businesses reported cloud-based technology (59.0%), specialized software (58.9%), and specialized equipment (57.4%) were “very important” to their processes or methods (Figure 5).

In contrast, they said robotics (47.1%) and AI (58.0%) were only “somewhat important.”

Overall, respondents pointed to cloud-based and specialized software as the two most important technologies for improving business processes and methods.

Information about confidentiality and sampling and nonsampling error for the 2023 ABS are available on the ABS Methodology page.