New research · Free report
Everyone’s using AI to do more. Very few are using it to decide better.
We asked 49 founders and growth leaders how AI really fits into their startup or scaleup: what they use it for, who’s driving it, and what’s stopping it paying off. The answers are in The Startup & Scaleup AI Adoption Gap.
- Where AI confidence falls off a cliff, by company size
- The four ways teams are using AI, and which one compounds
- The blockers holding founders and marketing leaders back
Free. Instant download. You’ll also join the GREX waitlist, and you can leave it any time.
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You’re in. Here’s your report.
Download the PDFYou’re on the GREX waitlist too, so you’ll hear from us when your spot opens. Want the same lens on your own business? Get a free GTM Gap Report.
What’s inside
Six findings, 16 pages
98% of the people we asked are using AI in some form. So the gap isn’t who’s using it any more. It’s who’s getting results from it.
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Confidence drops as headcount grows
86% of 1–2 person startups call AI core to the business. At 11–25 people it’s 25%. We break down spend, tool count and confidence by company size.
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More tools, less certainty
Past 50 people, teams average 4+ AI tools and £3,500+ a month. Confidence doesn’t follow the spend. The report shows where it starts to rebound, and why we think it does.
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Founders and marketers see it differently
Founders and CEOs were 3.38x more likely to strongly reject the idea that they’re behind on AI. Marketing leaders were far more cautious. Which group is closer to the truth?
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The creation hamster wheel
80% use AI for content and 71% for reporting, but only 45% for strategy. Output is up everywhere. Very few teams are feeding what they learn back into decisions.
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What’s actually blocking teams
Scaleup marketing leaders worry about trust and context. Founders are stuck on the time and cost of setting it up properly. Two different problems, two different fixes.
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What AI looks like a year from now
Plus a snapshot of what teams have got AI to do, from shipping MVPs to auditing a year of email flows, in their own words.
From the report
Output theatre or growth engine?
Access to AI isn’t what separates teams any more. Everyone has it. What we saw in the data is a split between teams pumping out more and teams tying that output back to results. The report maps where most startups sit today and what it takes to move up and to the right.
Craft-bound
Real results, no leverage. Every extra result costs another senior hire.
AI-native growth engine
High output, and all of it aimed at channels already proven to convert. Output and results compound.
Sitting it out
Output capped by headcount. The gap widens every quarter.
Output theatre
More emails, more content, more experiments. No movement in the pipeline.
Most founders and leaders I speak to are successfully using AI to drive more output. But their competitors are doing the same thing, so suddenly everyone can do volume. The bar goes up again, results plateau, and AI isn’t giving them the advantage it once did.
Why it comes with a waitlist spot
We built GREX for the teams in this report
is an AI growth operating system built on Claude. When we asked what’s
getting in the way, the top answers were trust, context and setup time. Here’s how
we deal with each one.
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18% · “It doesn’t have our context”
Your context, in one place
GREX holds your positioning, ICP, past experiments and what worked, and every agent reads from it. Nobody re-briefs a new chat window on a Tuesday morning.
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20% · “Time and cost to set up”
We build it with you
You don’t start from a blank canvas. We set up the systems with you from our library of growth processes and run them alongside your team until they stick.
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31% · “We don’t trust the output”
Every run, on the record
Each process is tied to the number it’s meant to move, and every run is logged. You can see what the AI did, check it, and drop what isn’t working.
Who we asked
49 people who own growth
Founders, CEOs and growth leaders at startups and scaleups from 1 to 100+ people, surveyed in the run-up to our September 2026 webinar.
- Founders & CEOs 45%
- CMOs & Heads of Marketing 39%
- Heads of Growth 6%
- Ops & RevOps leads 4%
- Other 6%
Questions
Is the report free?
Why does it come with a waitlist spot?
Who took part in the survey?
What is GREX?
What happens to my email?
Free · 16 pages · Instant download
Get the AI Adoption Gap report
Plus early access to GREX when your spot opens.
Free. Instant download. You’ll also join the GREX waitlist, and you can leave it any time.
Enter a valid work email.
You’re in. Here’s your report.
Download the PDFYou’re on the GREX waitlist too, so you’ll hear from us when your spot opens. Want the same lens on your own business? Get a free GTM Gap Report.