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Examples

Companies using AI, with real examples

Six client results across six sectors, and what surveys say about how many businesses use AI and where.

Updated 5 min read

The short answer

Companies using AI today range from federal agencies to insurers, law firms and online stores. Most start with repeat work: answering leads, handling support tickets, reading documents and writing proposals. Adoption keeps growing, but it is still uneven across sectors and company sizes.

Key points

  • Adoption is rising but uneven by sector
  • Common uses: support, leads, documents, proposals
  • Financial and professional services lead use
  • Results below come from Nexum client projects

Examples

Companies using AI, by sector

Each example is a Nexum client. Names are left out.

  • Government contracting

    Government contracting: proposals in under an hour

    A federal contractor bidding on $10M+ contracts had an AI workflow built that pulls past performance, checks compliance and formats to spec. Proposals went from about 60 hours to under one.

    3xproposal capacity, 23% higher win rate

    Read the case →

  • SaaS

    SaaS: an assistant that resolves Tier-1 tickets

    A company with 50,000+ users built an AI assistant trained on its past tickets. It resolves 85% of Tier-1 inquiries and hands complex cases to a person with full context.

    1,200+agent hours back every month

    Read the case →

  • Insurance

    Insurance: claims decided faster

    A regional insurer had an AI built that reads documents and photos, checks the policy and recommends a decision. Adjusters handle only the complex cases.

    75%faster claims processing

    Read the case →

  • E-commerce

    E-commerce: every lead contacted in seconds

    A home goods brand spending $40K a month on ads now contacts every lead in under 20 seconds, by SMS, email or voice call, day or night. Before, it took 6-12 hours.

    34%higher conversion rate, 28% lower acquisition cost

    Read the case →

  • Legal

    Legal: invoice entry without typing

    A boutique law firm stopped entering invoices by hand. An AI assistant reads each invoice, matches it to the right case in Clio and syncs it to QuickBooks.

    40+hours back every month, 99.8% accuracy

    Read the case →

  • Real estate

    Real estate: no missed calls

    A top-performing agent was losing deals to missed calls. A custom AI voice agent now answers every call in under 3 seconds, qualifies leads and books viewings.

    47%more booked viewings in 60 days

    Read the case →

What companies use AI for

  • Support

    Tickets answered in seconds

  • Leads

    Every lead contacted fast

  • Documents

    Claims and invoices read by AI

  • Proposals

    Drafts built from past work

The pattern across these clients is simple. Each one picked a task that repeats all day and costs real hours.

Support tickets, lead replies, claims, invoices and phone calls all fit. Our AI use cases page lists more by business function.

  • Customer support and first response
  • Lead follow-up and booking
  • Document and claims review
  • Proposals and billing

How many businesses use AI

  1. 01

    2023

    3.8% of businesses used AI in production, per Census

  2. 02

    Year-end 2025

    About 18 percent of firms had adopted AI

  3. 03

    Next

    Surveys keep showing wider use

Answers vary with the survey method. Per the Federal Reserve, about 18 percent of firms were using AI at the end of 2025.

Earlier Census data showed a lower rate. In 2023, only 3.8% of businesses used AI to produce goods and services, with use varying by sector.

To size up businesses using AI, treat each survey's wording as part of the answer.

Which sectors lead

  • Financial services

    63 percent report work-related use

  • Professional services

    62 percent report work-related use

  • Federal agencies

    3,611 use cases submitted in 2025

Adoption differs by industry. In a Federal Reserve note, financial services (63 percent) and professional services (62 percent) top work-related generative AI use.

Agencies in the US government are active too. Their AI use cases went from 1,757 to 3,611 between 2024 and 2025, and 1,818 are live or piloted.

Our pages on AI in government and AI in insurance go deeper.

Why companies are using AI

Before AI

  • Leads wait hours for a reply
  • Staff retype invoices
  • Proposals take days

With AI

  • Replies in seconds
  • Invoices read and synced
  • Proposals drafted from past work

McKinsey's global survey finds organizations scaling AI across the enterprise and using it in more business functions. Tools range from chatbots to agentic systems that act across workflows.

The same research says high performers are 3.3 times more likely to plan to use AI to fundamentally transform their business within three years.

Cost and speed are the practical drivers. Results like those above show why.

What holds companies back

Good first projects

  • High-volume repeat tasks
  • Clear before-and-after numbers
  • Work on tools you already use

Poor first projects

  • Vague goals
  • No owner for the result
  • Data nobody can access

Skills are the gap cited most often. One PEX report puts missing internal expertise at 49 percent of the adoption barriers.

Starting small helps. Pick one repeat task, measure it, then widen. Our guide to AI adoption covers the first steps.

Our data

What AI answers when buyers ask

We asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity 10 buyer questions about AI consulting. They named 95 companies, and 81% appeared in only one of the three.

CriterionChatGPTGeminiPerplexity
Companies named342560
Sites cited mostslalom.com (4 of 10)effectivesoft.com (6 of 10)phosailabs.com and wiserbrand.com (3 of 10)

Nexum measurement, October 20, 2026, via DataForSEO: 10 buyer questions to each AI, US English, 30 answers in total. 6 companies appeared in all three. Google showed an AI Overview for 7 of the 10 questions.

FAQ

Questions about companies using AI

  • Many sectors are represented. Financial and professional services lead work-related generative AI use in Federal Reserve data, while US federal agencies filed 3,611 AI use cases in 2025.

  • Mostly on repeat work. Census-based research lists marketing automation, virtual agents and data analytics as common uses, and our clients use it for proposals, support, claims, leads and invoices.

  • To scale work without scaling headcount. McKinsey reports organizations deploying AI in more business functions, and a share of high performers plan to use it to transform their business.

  • Surveys disagree. By year-end 2025 the Federal Reserve estimated adoption at about 18 percent of firms, whereas a 2023 Census figure for use in production was 3.8%.

  • Large organizations are well represented. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported 215 high-impact AI use cases, the most of any federal agency. We also build for large enterprises: see enterprise AI.

  • Yes, often through simpler tools tied to leads, calls and invoices. A law firm client saved 40+ hours a month on invoices. See AI in small business.

  • Missing skills rank high. A PEX report found lack of internal expertise at 49 percent. The way around it is a narrow first project with a measurable result.

  • Choose one repeat process, price what it costs today and automate that first. Our implement AI guide gives the steps.

Related

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