AI is finally starting to carry its weight, with new data from Tech.co discovering that 22% of small businesses owners are saving between six and ten hours per week by using AI.

That’s not all, though. A majority are seeing productivity gains, with 54% of small business owners stating that AI technology has improved their operation in some capacity since implementation.

As for what they’re using AI for, the survey found that writing tasks and research are quite common, while customer support remains one of the most productive industry for AI.

AI Is Improving Productivity

With 22% of businesses saving six to ten hours per week by using AI and 54% of business owners seeing productivity boosts, it’s safe to say that the technology is finally contributing in a serious way.

In fact, our data found that those spending heartily are seeing some of the biggest gains. Businesses spending between $1,001 and $2,500 on AI per month are the ones typically saving a full day of work, while businesses spending under $100 per month are saving less than 2 hours per month.

All in all, AI remains a classic get-what-you-pay-for situation, with free and entry-level solutions not providing much when it comes to enterprise-level productivity gains.

What Are Businesses Using AI For?

We also asked business owners what they’re actually using AI for, so that we can get a feel for how the technology can best be utilized for productivity gains.

Here are some of the top tasks businesses leaders are automating in 2026:

• Writing tasks – 29%
• Research – 26%
• Customer support – 19%
• Taking meeting notes – 16%
• Scheduling & calendar management – 16%
• Money & bookkeeping – 15%
• Staffing & team admin – 13%

Right now, it seems like businesses are only comfortable automating some of the more basic tasks, while more advanced, human-level requirements like money and staffing are still waiting in the wings for more capable AI tools.

What Tasks Are AI Best For?

While we did provide you with some information about which tasks are being automated the most, it’s also worth understanding what automated tasks are improving productivity the most.

Our data found that 80% of business leaders who automated customer support tasks with AI saw improvements in productivity, representing the largest percentage of business leaders doing so.

Essentially, when speed and efficiency are the most important means of accomplishing a task, as is the case with almost all customer support interactions, AI tools can make a big difference for your business.

A certain mindset is taking over the logistics industry, with recent data from Tech.co surveys finding that growth has become more of a priority than ever.

As for what kind of strategies they’re employing to do so, logistics businesses were primarily found to be adopting new technology and optimizing recruitment in order to facilitate this growth.

Why are businesses more focused on growth than ever before? Well, you’ll have to keep reading to find out!

Record-Breaking Rise in Logistics Businesses Prioritizing Growth

According to Tech.co’s Logistics Growth Stability Index, more logistics businesses are prioritizing growth than ever before.

The index rose to 1.3 in March 2026, marking the highest level since we started tracking in March 2025.

More notably, the rise comes after February 2026 saw the lowest prioritization of growth since we started tracking, coming in at only 0.8.

Growth Strategies Include New Tech & Recruitment

Prioritizing growth is one thing, but how are logistics businesses in 2026 actually trying to grow their companies right now?

According to our data, 19% of businesses are prioritizing new technology as a way to spur growth. That represents the most common strategy for businesses in our data, and it shows a 2% increase since February, when only 17% of businesses said the same.

The second biggest priority for growth in logistics businesses is staffing, with 18% of businesses stating that increasing retention and recruitment were the means by which they plan to grow in 2026.

Why Are Logistics Businesses So Focused on Growth?

There are three big reasons why we think businesses in the logistics industry are so focused on growth, specifically in March 2026.

• High freight demand – 83% of US logistics businesses had a moderate to high level of freight to haul in March, so operations need to grow to manage it.
• Regulatory concerns – New regulations that ban non-English speaking drivers could be fueling a need to hire more drivers and retain current staff.
• Volatile fuel costs – Fuel card adoption has risen 10% in the last month, which could point to rising fuel costs forcing businesses to find ways to earn more through growth.

The logistics industry is always in flux, but these changes are far more substantial than usual. If your operation is in need of some growth, be sure to check back with Tech.co for more logistics stats on how the industry is adapting.

Higher education facilities are increasingly implementing work-based learning in cybersecurity programs in an effort to overhaul the yawning cybersecurity skills gap, new research finds.

According to a study conducted by the University of South Florida, colleges and universities are determined to close the skills gap and have begun to incorporate hands-on learning into their existing cybersecurity programs. Practitioners argue that such an approach can create a more “scalable” and “career-ready” talent pipeline.

Cybersecurity is a growing concern among businesses around the world. The rapid adoption of AI has opened up new attack surfaces for cybercriminals, as well as giving rise to a new generation of sophisticated tools that are difficult to detect. The skills gap is commonly cited as one of the biggest obstacles in countering this evolving threat landscape.

Higher Education Firms on a Mission to Close Cybersecurity Skills Gap

Higher education facilities across the US are increasingly deploying work-based learning into their cybersecurity programs as part of an effort to address the industry skills gap, according to a new report.

With many businesses around the world struggling to cope with an escalating wave of cyberattacks, the study highlights the importance of hands-on learning to better prepare students for the future workforce.

“This is critical in an environment where technology is rapidly changing and the workforce has to adapt to those changes. Strengthening programs with the use of work-based learning can create a more scalable, inclusive, and career-ready cybersecurity talent pipeline.” – Oscar A. Aliaga, Associate Professor, University of South Florida

Hands-On Learning Proliferating Across Facilities of Different Types

To gather their findings, the researchers mapped out work-based learning (WBL) practices with a cross-sectional survey. Mainly, they were preoccupied with prevalence, regional distribution, and the characteristics of such an approach.

Ultimately, it was found that, while WBL opportunities span all levels of higher education credentials, they are most prevalent among certificates and associate degree programs. This suggests that educational practitioners are eager to embed hands-on cybersecurity learning at foundational levels.

Elsewhere, the research identified 266 WBL activities across a wide variety of types, including industry speaker series, capstone experiences, worksite visits, job shadowing, employee mentorships, and senior design projects.

Closing Skills Gap Key to Combating Mounting Security Threats

As we’ve covered elsewhere, global cybersecurity has reached a “tipping point,” with the rise of AI being a significant contributing factor. To make matters worse, businesses are understaffed and under-resourced where it matters most: their IT and security departments.

According to a recent report, 88% of professionals have experienced at least one “significant” cybersecurity consequence as a result of the skills gap. Concerningly, the data indicates that the skills gap is actually getting worse, with 95% of surveyed respondents reporting at least one skill need, up from 90% the year before.

And with 68% of employees believing that existing security measures are insufficient to deal with the rising threat level, the need for cybersecurity talent has never been greater. The pervasiveness of WBL practices across the nation poses hope for the future.

Tax season is a holiday for many hackers: If they’re after financial information, there’s no better time to wheedle it out from unsuspecting victims.

In 2026, there’s a new scam threat to consider, and that’s AI. Phishing attempts might use text-based LLMs or voice-based impersonations, but with AI powering them, bad actors can send a hundred times as many messages.

Here are the signs to look for, as well as the ways that experts like the Better Business Bureau (BBB) are recommending people respond in order to stay safe.

A ‘Record Number of Calls’ to the IRS

Many of the most recent tax-related AI scams are fear-based: They impersonate debt collectors or the IRS, claiming that their target needs to immediately pay a fictional debt.

Threats of stronger penalties or even jail time help to keep the target too scared to question whether the phone call, text, or email they’re responding to is actually official.

BBB Senior Director of Communications Jason Meza, speaking to KSAT news, explained that the IRS “has seen a record number of calls come in.”

“We’re seeing a lot more calls, emerging calls of AI, impersonating the IRS, impersonating collectors, tax collectors, debt collectors trying to get you to pay up or face penalties or jail time.” -Meza

IRS Typically Uses Snail Mail

How can you know what’s a scam and what’s not?

For starters, you can reject a phone call, text or email that claims to be from the IRS. According to Meza, the IRS “traditionally does not use these services. In fact, they will use snail mail.”

If anything arrives unsolicited and you haven’t first reached out to the IRS for information, be very cautious.

Beware Unexpected Tax Refund Offers

Another tip? Common tax scams in 2026 include messages claiming that the target qualifies for new tax credits or larger refunds — relying on the target’s hope for more money or a better deal to trick them into sharing personal information.

Clicking on a link from these scam messages will direct victims to offer up Social Security numbers and birth dates, paving the way for full-blown identity theft.

If you think you’ve been a victim of a scam like any of the ones mentioned in this article, you should report it to the BBB, the IRS, and/or the Federal Trade Commission.

Microsoft has released new updates for its Copilot AI offering, including Copilot Cowork, which can plan, coordinate, and access various tools to complete tasks with human supervision.

Likewise, Microsoft announced upgrades to Copilot’s Researcher agent. With “Critique,” users can use and compare outputs from different AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

These upgrades signal a shift within enterprise AI offerings that focus more on solving multi-step, complex workflows and granting more autonomy to AI systems.

Microsoft Releases Copilot Cowork for Early Access

On Monday, Microsoft unveiled new upgrades to Copilot, including a new agentic AI tool known as Copilot Cowork.

Cowork behaves autonomously in order to complete tasks set out by the user. Once it has its goal, with human oversight, it generates a plan, coordinates tasks using the various tools and files it has access to, and presents its findings.

Currently, Cowork is only available via early access for participants in Microsoft’s Frontier program.

Copilot Researcher Agent Gets GPT and Claude Upgrades

As well as Copilot Cowork, Microsoft rolled out a series of upgrades to Copilot’s Researcher agent. One new feature, “Critique,” sets up a system where one AI model can evaluate the responses of another.

OpenAI’s GPT generates the response, while Claude reviews it for accuracy and quality, before it’s presented to the user. Microsoft hopes to invert this workflow in the future, where Claude generates and GPT reviews.

Likewise, the “Council” feature allows users to pull outputs from different AI models for the same request, allowing direct comparison between responses.

In a post on LinkedIn, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote: “You can run multiple models on the same prompt at the same time, so you can see where they align and diverge, and understand what each adds.”

Enterprise Shift to Multi-Step Workflows

These new developments from Microsoft represent a shift in enterprise-level AI offerings, which are more focused on multi-model AI systems that can be built into long-running and complex workflows. Businesses are now searching for ways AI can become embedded into their workflows, completing tasks autonomously.

In a blog post, Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer for AI at Work at Microsoft, described Copilot Cowork in particular as a shift toward AI that carries out connected sequences of actions, rather than simply acting as a response generator for loose, individual user requests.

Multi-model AI workflows are highly beneficial for businesses, especially as AI is increasingly used as a way to manage multiple systems, departments, and data sources. For example, they can be used to enhance consistency across projects that require input from several teams, such as resolving difficult customer queries.

Voice phishing is getting better and better: It’s now the second most popular initial entry point for cyber attacks, according to Google.

The Google Threat Intelligence Group’s latest report is out from incident response unit Mandiant, and it found that “highly interactive” voice fakery now makes up 11% of vectors observed across 2025.

That’s almost twice as frequent as email phishing attacks (6%), which were once a huge staple of hackers everywhere.

Voice Phishing Surged Across 2025, New Data Shows

“Highly interactive voice phishing saw a significant surge to 11%, becoming the second-most commonly observed vector” in 2025, the report said.

However, it notes that “exploits remained the most common initial infection vector for the sixth consecutive year, accounting for 32% of intrusions.”

What does voice phishing look like in practice? Some groups target IT help desks with the aim of fully bypassing typical security measures like multifactor authentication (MFA) in order to get the initial access to software-as-a-service (SaaS) environments that they need.

Email Phishing Attempts Were Less Frequent

In a sharp contrast, email phishing fell to just 6% of intrusions last year. Social engineers appear to be moving to audio and away from text.

Other takeaways from the new report:

• Cybercriminals a lot faster at handing off initial access in targeted environments: Their window was just 22 seconds in 2025 – huge drop from eight hours in 2022.
• Global median dwell time is 14 days, up from 11 days. This “likely reflects growing sophistication, particularly in evading defenses.”
• Organizations are getting better at spotting threats internally: “52% of the time organizations first detected evidence of malicious activity internally, an increase from 43% in 2024.”

Cyber Criminals Love AI Tools

AI-powered voice phishing is just the start: Once they’ve gained access, hackers can harvest OAuth tokens and session cookies or steal hard-coded keys and personal access tokens. They can then use all that data to infiltrate downstream environments and steal mass amounts of customer data.

The new report joins similarly troubling analyses from recent months.

Most recently, we covered a study by Armis that claimed cyber crime had hit a global “tipping point.” We’ve also heard from yet another study which determined that a full 68% of professionals say existing security tools can’t mitigate new threats.

50% of all working hours are set to be undertaken by AI agents in the near-future, says a new report from Accenture and The Wharton School. The findings appear in The Age of Co-Intelligence, which examines how human and AI collaboration is evolving.

Elsewhere, the study concludes that so-called “minimum viable” AI-led organizations will require at least 60 enterprise agents to support key functions such as R&D, customer service, and finance. 35 of these agents set to be digital, and the remaining 25 will be physical.

The research is part of a growing body of evidence that, increasingly, AI is no longer just used as an enabler, but as a tangible replacement for human labor. While businesses are pushing back on this narrative, it is becoming harder to deny.

Half of All Working Hours to be Conducted by AI Agents

50% of all working hours will be handled by AI agents in the near-future, according to new research from Accenture and The Wharton School. The consultancy giant itself laid off thousands of employees last year in what many saw as a pivot towards AI.

The study looks at how the relationship between humans and AI has evolved, contending that usage has shifted from “simple augmentation” to “co-intelligence.”

To gather findings, the researchers analyzed task-level data across 18 industries using data from O*NET (Occupational Information Network) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, corresponding to more than 120 million workers across 18 industries.

Findings Illuminate Changing Human-AI Relationship

The report argues that organizations will soon require at least 60 agents to support important business functions, comprising 35 digital agents and 25 physical ones.

Consumer goods and services businesses will see the highest percentage of work undertaken by these agents, with 58% of working hours to be automated (29% digital agents and 29% physical ones).

At the other end of the spectrum, healthcare businesses will remain largely untouched by AI automation, with 28% of hours impacted by digital agents and just 13% impacted by physical ones.

While it’s thought that the emerging dynamic will have a positive impact on business output, the researchers issued a note of caution: “Humans must stay in the lead by setting direction, defining guardrails, challenging analysis, making trade-offs, and owning outcomes.”

Growing Disconnect Between Employee Fears and Business Assurances

The Accenture-Wharton report is the latest in a long line of similar findings that posits AI is no longer just a tool for augmentation, but poses a genuine threat to jobs everywhere. Recently, it was revealed that a staggering 54% of companies plan compensation cuts due to AI, with a further 26% set to lay off staff in favor of automation entirely.

Increasingly, workers are fearful that their job security is at risk due to increasing investment in the nascent technology. Several high-profile companies have already laid off staff while increasing their AI budgets, including Accenture, Salesforce, and Microsoft.

A number of companies have also walked back their AI pivots, with a rift emerging between employee concerns and the language that their bosses are deploying with regards to AI. It’s expected that this division will only continue to deepen as AI uptake increases.

37% of consumers trust brands more when their email communications feel human, according to a recent study.

While consumers aren’t set against businesses using AI in brand emails, above all, the study shows that personalization and relevance are the key makers of trust.

Businesses can utilize AI tools for monitoring email marketing campaign success, however, the human touch remains a vital component to ensure communications feel personal.

Consumers Trust Brand Emails That Feel Human, Despite Being Less Polished

In a recent Adobe Express study, 37% of consumers revealed that they trust brands more when marketing emails feel human, even if this makes them appear less polished. This suggests that personal and authentic communications matter more to consumers today than perfection.

Similarly, 18% of consumers said they have unsubscribed from marketing emails in the past because they suspected it was written by AI.

Adobe Express surveyed 1,007 consumers in the US as part of its study, with data being collected in December 2025.

Consumers are Generally Wary of AI in Email Marketing

On average, consumers estimated that they receive around six AI-generated emails per week, highlighting an increased use of AI within email communications. However, this isn’t always welcomed, as almost half (46%) of consumers surveyed said they would be more likely to unsubscribe from emails if they knew an email was written by AI.

Despite not all marketers embracing AI in this space, these findings suggest that consumers are increasingly paying attention to the way emails are written, and that AI use can be detrimental to how much trust is fostered between brands and their audiences.

Additionally, 78% of consumers highlighted that messages that felt too salesy or pushy made emails less appealing, as well as wordy emails (46%) and generic messaging (37%).

The Way Forward Blends AI with Human Creativity

Overall, 60% of consumers said an email that sounds like a real person wrote it is what makes it feel truly personalized.

That being said, 37% of consumers said they don’t care whether a marketing email sounds human or AI-generated, so long as the content within is useful and relevant to them. This positions personalization and relevance as the gold standard of marketing emails.

These findings state that consumers are not entirely averse to the use of AI in email marketing, however, businesses should focus on creating a balance that includes both human creativity and AI, in order to achieve the personalization and relevance consumers feel from a human-written email.

AI can be highly beneficial to campaigns, by monitoring key metrics and analyzing trends for example, but businesses seem apt to lose their audience when they attempt to replace the trust consumers feel from human creativity.

The honeymoon period is over for AI tools, with executives now measuring the success of the technology on financial goals rather than pure innovation.

A new study found that costing savings (53%) and return-on-investment (50%) are the most important factors when evaluating AI tools.

More notably, this is a big change of perspective from just last year, when more nebulous metrics were considered most important, like optimized product designs and improved data processing.

AI Success: Financial Goals Over Innovation

According to a new study from TE Connectivity, the financial benefits are more important than product innovations when it comes to AI for business executives in 2026.

More specifically, 66% of executives say that financial goals are the top priority when it comes to evaluating the use of AI at their respective businesses.

On top of that, 53% of executives are measuring the success of AI tools based on cost savings, while 50% are doing so based exclusively on return-on-investment (ROI), the two highest metrics across the research.

A Big Change from 2025

The fact that business executives are pivoting entirely to the financial implications of AI is headline-worthy in its own right. However, it’s also worth noting that this is a big change from 2025.

In fact, only 46% of business executives were willing to admit that they are focused on financial goals over innovation in 2025, which represents a 20% difference in just a single year.

The same is true of the more specific measurements of success too. Only 30% were measuring AI success by return-on-investment in 2025, another 20% increase year-over-year.

55% of executives were measuring AI success based on optimized product designs. In 2026, that number is only 32%.

AI Needs to Start Making Money

Since its inception in 2022, the modern iteration of AI has seen a lot of promises without a lot of results. ROI in particular has been hard to come by, with businesses reporting little revenue from a lot of investment.

That’s why this study is far from surprising. Business executives the world over have given the technology plenty of breathing room to be improve productivity, increase revenue, and “transform the business world,” as experts have predicted.

Now, it’s time to pay the piper, and if AI can’t deliver, there could be some serious economic issues for businesses that have been laying off employees in anticipation of this eventual return.

Salesforce is making AI a bit more accessible by announcing that its Agentforce for Small Business tools will now be available in all its Salesforce Suite plans.

More specifically, small businesses will now have access to powerful AI functionalities that have become common, albeit expensive, in business platforms like Salesforce.

Features like advanced pipeline summaries, email content generation for easy follow-ups, and AI assistant access to guide small business owners through the CRM platform.

Salesforce Announces Agentforce for Small Businesses in Suite Plans

Announced in a company blog post, Salesforce is officially bringing its AI-powered Agentforce for Small Business features to the Suite plans available from the popular CRM.

“Teams can quickly understand what’s happening with customers, follow up faster, and act on insights, all from the same place you already run your business.” – Salesforce announcement

The AI features will be available on the Starter Suite and Pro Suite plans, as well as the Free Suite plan, which allows you to get started at no cost for up to two users.

Check out our Salesforce Free Suite review to learn more

What Can Agentforce for Small Businesses Do?

Adding AI to business software is all too common in 2026, but Salesforce provides some truly helpful tools that can supercharge small business to make sales, analyze analytics, and streamline communication.

Again, all of these tools will be available in all Suite plans, even the free option.

• Sales summaries – Users will be able to get “instant, high-level summary” of deal status, so you’ll know exactly where you stand before every meeting.
• Generated follow-up emails – You’ll be able to generate follow-up emails based on “customer data and business context” to follow up with clients quickly.
• Employee Agent – This AI assistant works like conversational chatbots to provide “summaries, draft personalized communications, and log activities.”

Making AI Accessible

To say free AI features in business software is rare would be quite an understatement. Typically, these automation-focused tools cost extra or require credits, which creates a substantial barrier to entry for small businesses on a budget.

Heck, even Salesforce pricing shows that the Agentforce functionality is typically reserved for the most expensive paid plan, with the Agentforce 1 Sales plan costing $550 per user, per month.

That’s why this announcement is such a big deal for small businesses. It’s one of the few examples of a CRM platform providing AI features at absolute no additional cost. And, in the case of the free plan, no cost at all.