Maryland Survey Finds Widespread AI Use but Mostly Modest Productivity Gains

AI has reached most businesses in Maryland’s new survey, but large productivity gains remain less common. The Maryland State Innovation Team released its Maryland Business AI Benchmark Report on October 1, 2026, in Baltimore. Among regular AI users, 70% described the productivity impact as slight; 21% called it significant.

The release came at Gov. Wes Moore’s Maryland Innovation Summit, which brought together around 400 leaders from government, business, labor, philanthropy and academia. The benchmark gives that gathering a concrete set of employer responses about adoption, productivity and workforce expectations.

Using AI is not the same as integrating it

The team surveyed nearly 300 senior decision-makers at Maryland organizations in June and July 2026. These are respondents’ accounts of their businesses and expectations, not a direct measurement of output or a count of jobs already lost.

Some form of AI use was reported by 91% of respondents. Yet 58% fell into the basic-use category: standalone tools or features built into existing products, rather than deeper integration. The adoption figure therefore captures a wider range of activity than businesses embedding AI more deeply in their operations.

Among regular users, 92% reported a positive productivity impact. That result describes how widely benefits were reported; the slight-versus-significant responses describe their size. A positive answer should not be read as a claim of a major improvement.

64%Existing employees doing more

64% plan to have existing employees do more with AI rather than hire additional staff.

4%Expecting headcount reductions

4% expect AI to reduce their headcount.

Two-thirds of businesses have a dedicated AI budget, according to the benchmark. Their workforce answers make an important distinction: expecting few headcount reductions is not the same as expecting more hiring. The most common stated plan is to get more done with the employees already in place.

Businesses want help with the next step

Capital and technical assistance ranked as the most helpful potential state interventions, followed by AI pilot programs and talent pipelines. In businesses’ own words, the most frequent requests were:

• AI training programs.
• Funding tailored to small businesses.
• Affordable access to secure digital infrastructure.

Maryland Chief Innovation Officer Francesca Ioffreda described the benchmark as a basis for shaping state products, programs and policies with ground-level data. The requests identify what respondents want the state to provide; they are preferences for support, not commitments to deliver those services.