A new report from the JPMorganChase Institute finds that small business adoption of artificial intelligence has accelerated sharply since 2022, but the gains are not being shared evenly, with meaningful gaps emerging along gender and generational lines.
Researchers tracked actual AI-related purchasing behavior using Chase Business Banking transaction data from 2019 through 2025. That methodology matters: it captures what businesses are actually paying for, not what owners claim to be doing in a survey.
By the end of 2025, male-owned businesses reached 19.7% AI adoption while female-owned businesses reached 17.2%, a gap more than eight times larger than what existed in 2019. The divergence accelerated starting in 2023, coinciding with the mainstream explosion of generative AI tools. Millennial owners led all generations with a 22.1% adoption rate. Generation Z came in second at 18.6%, having overtaken Generation X by mid-2023. Baby Boomers trailed significantly at just 10.3%.
The most striking finding sits at the intersection of both dimensions. Among Generation Z business owners, men adopted AI at 20% compared to just 13.9% for women. Among Baby Boomers, that same gap was just half a percentage point. Younger generations are adopting faster overall, but the gender divide within that cohort is the widest of any group studied.
Organizations with older workforces may face steeper internal adoption curves, not just resistance to new tools, but genuine familiarity gaps requiring real investment in training and change management. The gender gap tells a different story. Research consistently finds that women express greater concerns than men about AI data security, privacy, and trustworthiness; concerns that mirror exactly the questions compliance and risk teams raise every time a new AI vendor walks through the door.
The industry-level data adds texture. In healthcare, male-owned firms adopted AI at a rate 1.36 times higher than female-owned firms. That gap will be familiar to anyone working in healthcare revenue cycle who has watched AI move unevenly across the sector.
