AI in professional services: what works and how to start
How many are using it
of US professional, scientific and technical services businesses used AI in the fortnight 21 Sep 2026 to 4 Oct 2026, by the US Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey (published 22 Oct 2026).
Businesses, not workers: a firm counts if it used AI at all. Every sector · Over time
What works here
All rated use cases →AI for legal analysis and drafting may help, but the evidence is not yet strong enough for a firmer verdict.
4 studies counted →Research and analysisDoes AI help with consulting and analysis work?AI for consulting and analysis tasks may work for tasks that sit inside what the AI does well.
2 studies counted →WritingDoes AI help professionals write faster and better?AI for drafting work documents may help, but the evidence is not yet strong enough for a firmer verdict.
3 studies counted →Software engineeringDoes AI make software developers faster?Not enough evidence yet to say whether AI coding assistants make developers faster.
6 studies counted →What hasn't worked
Across all sectors →- Legal work with AI, Schwarcz et al. (2026): Highest baseline skill (scores on tasks done without AI): AI access can lower quality for the strongest participants; o1-preview's quality gains were larger for lower-GPA students.
- Legal work with AI, Autor et al. (2026): Junior lawyers, unassisted redlining after three months: No average gain (-0.03 SD, p = 0.89); scores split into more poor and more good results.
- Analysis and consulting with AI, Dell'Acqua et al. (2026): −19 points Correct solutions on a complex managerial task chosen to be outside the frontier.
- Writing with AI, Ju and Aral (2026): −0.136 points on a 7-point rating scale Human-rated ad image quality (7-point scale), human-AI vs human-human teams.
- Writing with AI, Ju and Aral (2026): Output diversity: Human-AI teams produced more similar ads to each other (cosine distance -0.094), a homogenising effect.
- Coding with AI, Becker et al. (2025): +19% Implementation time per issue (developer-logged time, before and after PR review), regression-adjusted for forecast difficulty.
- Coding with AI, He et al. (2026): +30.26% Static analysis warnings (SonarQube), average post-adoption effect.
- Coding with AI, He et al. (2026): +41.64% Code (cognitive) complexity, average post-adoption effect.
- Coding with AI, Agarwal et al. (2026): +17.73% Static analysis warnings, agent-first repositories (IDE-first estimate +19.00% is not significant).
- Coding with AI, Agarwal et al. (2026): +39% Cognitive complexity, both groups.
- Coding with AI, Agarwal et al. (2026): Repositories already using AI IDEs before agents (IDE-first): Only a short bump in commits (+16-28% in months 0-2), then lines added about -61% and commits about -35% by month 6, while complexity still rises (section 4)
Rules to check first
Duties of confidentiality cover client information you put into an AI tool. Check the vendor's terms on storage and training, and your engagement letters.
Regulators for lawyers, accountants and other professions are publishing rules and guidance on AI use. Check your own regulator's before you start.
AI used to recruit, promote or monitor staff is high-risk under the EU AI Act, with extra duties for the firm using it. What applies when →
Before you start
Will AI help with your work? →- Map your tasks firstIn one large trial, consultants did better with AI on tasks inside what it does well, and worse on a task just outside it.
- Start where work is reviewedDrafts that a senior already checks are a safer first use than final advice.
- Check every citationIn one legal trial, a reasoning model produced more invented citations than lawyers working without AI.
- Watch juniors' skillsJunior lawyers gained most while drafting with AI, but showed no extra skill on a later task done without it.
- Grade the work blindMeasure quality with blind expert grading against work done without AI, as the trials did.
Learn for free
All free courses →More data: AI Adoption
More charts, each checked against its source, are on AI Adoption statistics. Dated events are in The AI Record.
How this page is made
The adoption figure is the US Census Bureau’s own estimate, read from its download; the use cases are rated from published studies by fixed rules (pilot, rules v0.3). Editorial owner: AI Adoption editors. Disclosure: AI Adoption uses AI tools, including Claude from Anthropic, in its research and editorial work. Spot a mistake? Corrections.