WSI enters the third year of its AI Business Insights research, covering strategy, governance, skills, search visibility, and measurable business results.
TORONTO, ON, CANADA, August 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — WSI opened its 2026 AI Business Insights Survey today, asking business owners whether their AI strategy has kept pace with adoption. The global survey examines AI strategy, governance, skills, and search visibility, and participating businesses will receive a benchmark against similar organizations by size, industry, and region when the findings are published.
This is the third consecutive year WSI has conducted the survey, and it comes as confidence in AI continues to outpace how prepared businesses are to use it effectively. In WSI’s 2024 research, 72% of respondents said AI could help them meet their business goals. By 2025, that number had climbed to 81%, yet only 40% of business owners had completed any formal AI training, even as their own managers (78%) and employees (77%) were already using AI tools day to day.
The updated 2026 survey looks at businesses across five areas: how coordinated their AI strategy actually is, who owns AI governance and risk, how employees are building AI skills, how well they understand and manage their visibility in AI search, and whether AI is producing results they can measure. Together, these questions move the conversation past whether a business uses AI, toward whether it has the structure to use AI with real results.
“AI adoption isn’t the interesting question anymore,” said Valerie Brown-Dufour, President of WSI. “Every business can already say yes to it. The real test is whether that yes turns into a plan someone owns, whether people know what to do with the tools they’ve been handed, and whether a customer looking for a business like yours can actually find you. That’s the difference between the businesses getting ahead this year and the ones still catching up.”
The survey takes seven to eight minutes. Businesses can take the 2026 AI Business Insights Survey here.
ABOUT WSI
Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, WSI is a leading global network of digital marketing and AI consultants: a community of agencies, each rooted in its local market and backed by knowledge shared across the network. For more than 30 years, WSI has been a strategy-first partner to businesses through every major shift in digital, from search to AI, pairing practical strategy with hands-on execution rather than one-off campaigns. Guided by its mission to unlock a world of possibility for those it serves, WSI helps businesses use digital and AI to strengthen the people and relationships behind them, not replace them. That belief is the heart of its tagline: Embrace Digital. Stay Human.
Cheryl Baldwin
Director, Marketing & Communications Department, WSI World
+1 905-678-7588 ext. 1283
email us here
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