Research note · September 2026 · about 5 minutes · last checked 15 September 2026
Every number on this site comes from somewhere you can check. This page lists where, who each study actually asked, and what each one can’t tell you about a trades business in Ireland.
The short version
- Every statistic links to its original source, and I check the figure against that source, not against someone else’s summary of it.
- Most of the good evidence is from other countries or bigger businesses. I say so every time.
- If nobody has measured something, I don’t invent a number for it.
The rules I work to
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Go to the original | A figure gets checked on the page of the organisation that produced it. If I can’t find it there, it doesn’t go in. |
| Say who was asked | A survey of chartered surveyors, or of US firms with staff, isn’t a survey of Irish sole traders. The post says which it is. |
| Flag who’s selling | When a study comes from a company selling the thing it measured, it’s labelled as vendor-published. |
| Don’t blend studies | Different surveys use different people, dates and definitions of “using AI”. I never add them together into one headline figure. |
| Label examples as examples | A worked calculation, like “80 enquiries × 20% missed…”, is marked as made up, not passed off as an average. |
| No number where none exists | If there’s no reliable figure, the post says that instead of filling the gap. |
Numbers you won’t find here
Some claims get repeated a lot in marketing aimed at trades. I looked, and couldn’t find trustworthy evidence for any of these, so none of them appear on this site:
- How much the average trades business loses to missed calls. It depends entirely on your trade, your enquiries and your prices. You can work out your own figure, but there’s no honest average.
- What Irish tradespeople will pay for AI. Every spending figure I found is from the US, and none is specific to trades.
- How many customers would rather deal with a person than an automated reply. I found no reliable study of Irish customers on this.
- How much time AI quoting saves. No published study measures it for small trades businesses.
- How many Irish sole-trader tradespeople use AI. Nobody has surveyed them.
The sources, and their limits
Every study the research posts rely on, with what it measured and why it can’t be read as a measurement of Irish trades.
Irish
| Source | Who they asked | Keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
| Google / Amárach Research (March 2026) | 400 Irish SMEs | Commissioned by Google, which sells AI. Measures opinion, not spending. Covers all sectors, not trades. |
| ICT Skillnet and AI Ireland, AI Readiness Pulse (Aug–Sept 2025) | Irish business leaders and decision-makers | Sample size isn’t published. Covers all sectors, not trades. |
| InterTradeIreland (announced June 2026) | 1,200 SMEs across the island (planned) | No results yet — findings are due later in 2026. Cited only to show the research is under way. |
| eTenders | Not a study — Ireland’s national tendering website | Cited only to say where public-sector tenders are published. Says nothing about whether AI helps anyone win them. |
| Data Protection Commission, rules on electronic marketing | Not a study — official guidance on the ePrivacy Regulations (S.I. 336 of 2011) | Summarised in plain English, not legal advice. Read the guidance itself before sending marketing texts or emails. |
UK, international and construction
| Source | Who they asked | Keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
| RICS, AI in construction report (2025) | 2,200+ construction professionals worldwide; 48% UK, 8% Europe | Mostly surveyors and project managers at commercial firms, not small trades businesses. Some figures apply only to certain professions. |
| Office for National Statistics (July 2026) | UK businesses with 10 or more employees | Leaves out sole traders and the smallest firms entirely. UK, not Ireland. |
| OECD, Generative AI and the SME Workforce (2024 survey) | 5,000+ SMEs in seven countries, including Ireland | All sectors combined. Covers generative AI only. |
| AI4QS report, Birmingham City University (January 2026) | The quantity surveying profession | Professional guidance, not a measurement of how AI performs in quoting. |
| NIST, Generative AI risk profile (July 2024) | Not a survey — a voluntary US framework | Used only as a checklist for sensible safeguards, never as evidence that a tool works. |
United States
| Source | Who they asked | Keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
| Federal Reserve, Small Business Credit Survey (fielded late 2025) | 6,525 US small businesses with employees | A convenience sample, not a random one. Not trades-specific. Excludes sole traders. |
| JPMorganChase Institute (April 2026) | Payments from 4.6 million US small businesses, 2019–2025 | Real spending, which is its strength — but only paid tools, only on Chase business accounts. Misses free tools. |
| Associated General Contractors of America (2025 outlook) | 1,109 US construction firms (965 answered the technology question) | Measures what firms plan to spend, not what they spent. |
| Harvard Business Review, “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads” (2011) | 2,241 US companies; a separate study of 1.25 million leads | About web enquiries, not phone calls. From 2011. Shows that enquiries go cold fast, not how many jobs a missed call loses. |
| InsideSales, Lead Response Study (2021) | 5.7 million inbound leads at 400+ companies | Vendor-published — InsideSales sells sales software. Pointing in a direction, not settled fact. |
| Convoso, citing Valve+Meter (2024) | US home-services companies | Vendor-published, and the full method isn’t shown. Treated with caution. |
Why this matters
Trades businesses get sold to constantly, usually with big numbers attached. If I’m asking you to trust what I say about AI, the least I can do is show you exactly where it comes from and where the evidence runs out.
Which is also why I’m collecting my own. None of the studies above asked local tradespeople which everyday problems — calls, quotes, follow-ups, invoices — actually matter most to them.
All the posts this page supports are on the research page — or start with 10 practical ways AI could help Irish trades businesses.