FreshBooks released its “Era of the Solopreneur” report today, and the top-line number redraws the hiring calculus for one-person businesses: 86% of solopreneurs now try AI before paying a human when they hit work they can’t finish alone. Another 90% say AI makes it easier for one person to start and run a business at all. Among those already using it, 98% say the technology has helped them accomplish client or business objectives that wouldn’t otherwise have been reachable.
Those aren’t productivity numbers. They’re substitution numbers.
The survey, fielded by Wakefield Research across 500 solopreneurs between June 22 and July 1, 2026, points at something more structural than the usual “AI saves time” framing. Asked which capability would matter most to future success, 64% chose being able to appear bigger or more capable than they actually are. Only 36% picked getting more done without adding time, employees, or costs. The differential is the story. Solopreneurs aren’t optimizing a workflow; they’re buying presence.
“AI is starting to change the math of running a very small business. For a solopreneur, the question isn’t only, ‘Can this tool save me an hour?’ Increasingly, it’s, ‘Can this help me take on a client, solve a problem, or deliver a level of service that previously would have required another person?’” said Shaheen Javadizadeh, CEO of FreshBooks.
That reframing is corroborated across the year. A Zoom and Upwork Small Business AI Report cited by Forbes in May found that 91% of solopreneurs said AI had reduced administrative work and 74% had scaled without hiring. A June Lettuce Financial survey of 603 solopreneurs put overall AI adoption at 89%, with the top uses being content creation (61%), marketing strategy and execution (46%), and admin (46%). Lettuce also found that the highest earners were significantly more likely to deploy AI across five or more functions, a pattern that lines up with what consumers have already started to reward: AI tools have become the third-biggest way consumers find local businesses.
Fortune’s May profile of founders like Maor Shlomo of Base44 and Dana Snyder of Positive Equation described AI agents absorbing work once split across product managers, QA engineers, and outside contractors, with monthly AI bills at lean startups sometimes rivaling the salaries they replace.
The friction is real. FreshBooks found 65% of respondents say reviewing AI output creates a risk of “AI burnout,” and Lettuce reported 29% still cite quality and accuracy concerns. Both are review-tax problems, not category-rejection problems. The hire has already happened. What’s left is managing it.
Sources
- https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/15/3362093/0/en/before-they-hire-86-of-solopreneurs-try-ai-first-freshbooks-survey-finds.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2026/05/05/how-ai-is-powering-a-new-generation-of-solopreneurs/
- https://fortune.com/2026/05/18/solo-founders-ai-automation-entire-teams-entrepreneurs/
- https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/report-lettuce-financial-top-earning-135500335.html
- https://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/small-businesses-put-ai-to-work-in-digital-marketing-178663.html