What moved
One in four US businesses now uses AI
The share of US businesses using AI rose 0.8 points in two weeks, to 24.6%, and is up 7.3 points since the end of November 2025. The spread by sector is wide: 46.4% in technology and telecom against 18.5% in retail and consumer businesses. See the series.
Leader move: Compare your sector’s line with your own count of AI systems in production, and set a 90-day target for moving one pilot into daily operations.
Half of US annual reports now mention AI
AI appears in 50.8% of 10-K reports filed in 2025, up 14.5 points from 36.3% a year earlier. Investors and auditors now treat AI as part of strategy and risk, so what a company leaves out of its filing is read as a statement too. See the series.
Leader move: Before the next filing cycle, agree with your general counsel and audit committee how your AI risks, controls and investments will be described, and who signs off.
AI agents reach day-long tasks
The longest task the best measured model completes half the time is now 17.4 hours of skilled human work, up from a record of 12.0 hours two months earlier. Half-time success is not production reliability, but supervised agents can now attempt work that used to fill a full working day. See the series.
Leader move: Pick one multi-step workflow this quarter and redesign it around an agent with a person approving each output, so the controls exist before the next jump.
Near-frontier AI costs half the flagship price
The cheapest models within reach of the best one, including Gemini 4 Argon, GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Sonnet 5.5, list at $4.00 per million tokens, against $8.00 for Claude Opus 5.5, the current capability leader. See the series.
Leader move: Make the cheapest model that meets your quality bar the default in new projects, and route only the hardest tasks to the flagship.
What to watch
- The next Census survey rounds: two consecutive falls in business AI use would signal a stall.
- Third-quarter filings from the four largest cloud providers, which set the capacity behind future prices.
- New METR measurements for the latest frontier models, which could move the agent record again.
- December 2, 2026, when the EU AI Act requires existing generative AI systems to mark their outputs.
About the curator & AI disclosure
Curated by Luciano Ayres
Luciano Ayres is Director of Artificial Intelligence at ArcTouch, with more than 20 years of experience in software and technology leadership and specialized studies in deep learning. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
AI-generated briefing. This edition was produced through an automated AI research and writing workflow curated by Luciano Ayres. Every figure links to its source for independent verification; summaries and analysis may contain errors and do not replace professional due diligence.