One in Three Canadian Workers Is Now Using Generative AI on the Job, StatCan Reports

Canada’s federal statistics agency has released the first major national study of generative AI use in the workplace, and the numbers reveal both the speed of adoption and its uneven spread across industries and roles.

As of March 2026, 35.9% of Canadian workers reported using generative AI tools as part of their primary job or business in the past 12 months, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey.

Who Is Using AI the Most?

Adoption is not uniform. StatCan divided professions into three categories based on exposure to AI:

• High exposure, high complementarity (doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers): 53.8% reported using AI tools at work
• High exposure, low complementarity (retail sales, office support, software development, accounting): 45.9% use GenAI tools
• Low-exposure professions (skilled trades, service workers, first responders): Only 14.2% reported AI use

Management employees had the highest rate of all, with 75.1% reporting AI tool use. Workers in natural and applied sciences followed at 67.5%.

How Often Are Workers Using AI?

Among those who have used AI in the past year, usage is mostly moderate:

• 63.5% use AI for some, but not all, tasks
• 31.4% use AI tools daily
• Only 11.6% describe their use as “broad” (most or almost all tasks)

Awareness is near-universal: 93.4% of workers know what generative AI tools are, and 51.5% say they understand how to use them.

Why This Matters for Workforce Strategy

The data signals that AI is no longer a fringe behavior in the Canadian workforce — it is mainstream in knowledge-work roles. For organizations building AI adoption programs, the gap between high-exposure and low-exposure workers points to where enablement and training investment will have the most impact.

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