50% of Brazilian companies already use AI, but only 15% have reached the advanced stage

Half of Brazilian companies have already entered the age of artificial intelligence, but the data reveals an important gap between adopting a tool and transforming operations with it. Adoption reaching 50% puts the technology at the center of corporate strategies, while the fact that only 15% have reached the advanced stage shows that maturity remains the main challenge.

AI adoption has already reached half of Brazilian companies

50% of Brazilian companies already use artificial intelligence, according to the Unlocking the Potential of AI in Brazil 2026 study, conducted by Strand Partners for AWS. The figure represents an increase from the 40% recorded in the previous survey.

The number puts AI in a new phase of the Brazilian market. The discussion is no longer just about which companies have started experimenting with the technology, but about their ability to turn that usage into productivity, new products, and competitive advantage.

The increase also shows that the barrier to entry is declining. Ready-made tools, cloud services, and generative AI applications have made it easier for companies that previously lacked the infrastructure to develop their own solutions to adopt the technology.

AI adoption is no longer limited to large companies

Growth is occurring across different types of organizations. Startups are leading the way, with 68% already using AI, compared with 50% across the overall market.

This movement indicates that smaller and younger companies can incorporate new technologies more quickly when the solution does not require major infrastructure projects.

The next challenge is turning adoption into results

Adoption, however, does not automatically mean maturity. A company can use a chatbot or a content-generation tool while continuing to operate in essentially the same way.

That is precisely the difference highlighted by the latest research data.

Only 15% have reached the advanced stage of artificial intelligence

AI adoption among Brazilian companies is still uneven across experimentation, integration, and transformation.

Only 15% of Brazilian companies using AI have reached the advanced stage, according to the AWS study. This group works with customized systems, combines multiple models, and uses agentic or autonomous AI applications.

The largest share, 58%, remains at the basic level. These companies primarily use the technology for incremental efficiency gains, such as automating tasks and supporting routine activities.

Another 27% are at the intermediate stage, where AI begins to be integrated directly into products and services. At this point, the technology stops being merely an individual tool and starts becoming more directly involved in business operations.

The basic stage still dominates the market

The predominance of basic AI usage helps explain why broader adoption does not necessarily translate into an equivalent transformation of businesses.

Using AI to speed up a task can generate productivity gains, but the impact tends to be greater when a company redesigns processes, connects systems, and uses its own data to build applications tailored to the business.

Advanced AI requires a different structure

At the advanced level, organizations must address issues that do not emerge with the same intensity during experimentation.

Integration with internal systems, data quality, security, governance, workforce training, and the definition of performance metrics all become part of the implementation process.

The biggest gap is now between experimenting with AI and embedding it into the business

The difference between adoption and maturity is the clearest picture of Brazil’s AI market in 2026. The country has rapidly increased the number of companies using the technology, but there is still a significant distance to applications capable of changing products, processes, and business models.

The study shows that 68% of organizations increased their AI investments over the past year. At the same time, 88% already use the cloud as supporting infrastructure, indicating that a significant portion of the market is building the foundation required to expand AI applications.

The results also help explain why companies are investing. Among organizations using AI, 72% report productivity gains and 79% expect the technology to drive business growth over the next 12 months.

Investment is growing ahead of maturity

This scenario creates an important situation for business leaders. Capital allocated to AI is increasing, but the ability to turn that investment into measurable impact is not keeping pace.

Only about one-third of companies are confident in their ability to accurately measure return on AI investment. This means part of the market is already increasing spending without having sufficiently structured metrics to evaluate the results.

The problem is becoming operational

The next stage of adoption requires more than simply making a tool available to employees.

Companies need to identify priority processes, establish ownership, integrate data and systems, and track indicators capable of showing whether AI actually reduced costs, increased productivity, improved revenue, or created new opportunities.

Agentic AI shows where the next frontier lies for businesses

Companies moving toward autonomous applications need to combine technology, infrastructure, and new governance structures.

Agentic artificial intelligence represents one of the main frontiers of the next stage of adoption, but the research shows that the Brazilian market is still poorly prepared for this shift.

Only 26% of Brazilian companies say they are familiar with the concept of agentic AI. Among organizations that know the technology, 6% say they have already fully implemented it and 31% are currently testing it.

The challenge is not purely technological. Systems capable of executing tasks and making certain decisions with greater autonomy increase the need for controls over data, permissions, security, and accountability.

Autonomy changes the level of risk

A tool that simply answers a question presents one type of risk. A system connected to a CRM, ERP, or internal tools and authorized to take actions presents another.

The greater the autonomy, the more important it becomes to clearly define which tasks can be executed, which information can be accessed, and when a decision must be reviewed by a person.

This discussion has already reached major technology providers. Microsoft, for example, has begun advocating new control structures for systems capable of executing actions autonomously, as discussed in the analysis of AI agent governance in businesses.

Readiness is still lagging behind the pace of technology

Only 21% of Brazilian companies consider themselves fully or highly prepared to adopt next-generation technologies such as agentic systems.

The data shows that infrastructure alone does not solve the problem. Companies also need to develop people, processes, and governance mechanisms to use more autonomous systems safely.

Startups are moving faster, but the challenge reaches the entire market

Brazilian startups show greater maturity in their use of AI, but the gap between adoption and readiness for the next generation is also visible in this group. According to the study, 68% of startups already use AI and 26% are at the advanced stage.

Their performance is stronger than that of other business groups. Among small and medium-sized businesses, 13% are at the advanced stage, while the figure reported for large companies is 9%.

This does not necessarily mean that larger companies are behind in every respect. Enterprise projects can involve legacy systems, regulatory requirements, security considerations, and organizational structures that make change more complex.

Company size alone does not determine maturity

The differences between these groups show that adoption speed and transformation capability are related phenomena, but they are not identical.

A startup may incorporate AI directly into its product because it was built around a more flexible architecture. An established company may need to integrate the technology into decades of processes, systems, and internal policies.

Competitive advantage is increasingly shifting toward execution

This scenario makes implementation an increasingly important factor. When half of the market is already using AI, simply adopting a tool is no longer enough to create a meaningful competitive advantage.

The advantage is more likely to come from the ability to identify strong use cases, integrate the technology into the business, and turn isolated applications into systems capable of delivering repeatable results.

Brazil’s market is entering a phase where maturity matters more than adoption

The next stage of enterprise AI will be defined less by the number of companies adopting the technology and more by their ability to turn it into business infrastructure.

The main signal from the 2026 research is that the AI adoption race is changing in nature. Reaching 50% of companies using AI represents significant progress, but the fact that only 15% are at the advanced stage shows that most of the market still has a second stage to navigate.

This transition involves skills development, infrastructure, governance, and measurement. The lack of qualified professionals is cited as one of the main barriers, mentioned by 48% of companies, while difficulties measuring returns limit managers’ ability to distinguish experimentation from strategic investment.

The movement is also appearing on the agenda of major technology companies. The discussion around more autonomous businesses, for example, has gained ground at corporate events in Brazil, including SAP NOW 2026, which placed the concept of autonomous organizations among the themes connected to the next phase of business transformation.

The most important metric may no longer be adoption

When the question was how many companies used AI, growth in adoption was enough to measure progress.

Now, that indicator is beginning to lose some of its explanatory power. Two companies can both use AI and achieve completely different results depending on how they integrate the technology into their processes.

The difference between using AI to save a few minutes on a task and redesigning an entire operation with intelligent systems represents a much greater change than the mere presence of the technology.

The next cycle will be defined by execution

For Brazilian business leaders, the most important data point is not simply that half of companies already use AI. It is that most have not yet reached the stage where the technology significantly changes the structure of the business.

That creates a window of opportunity. As AI tools become more accessible, competitive advantage is likely to shift toward companies capable of combining technology, data, people, and processes.

The Brazilian market is therefore entering a different phase: the competition is no longer just about who adopted AI first, but about who can turn that adoption into productivity, new products, efficiency, and sustainable business models.