New Ontario survey exposes the ai adoption paradox: buzz outpaces reality, trust lags

Toronto, ON – A new Liaison Strategies survey for Publicus, Ontario’s fastest-growing govtech startup, reveals that while artificial intelligence dominates headlines, the reality inside Ontario businesses is far more modest and the public remains deeply skeptical.

The survey, conducted August 1–14, 2025, polled 800 Ontario voters and 500 business leaders through live operators. It finds that AI adoption is limited, uneven, and overwhelmingly concentrated in easy applications like marketing and bookkeeping, while public opinion remains hostile across critical institutions like healthcare, universities, and insurance.

Liaison Strategies, a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), was the most accurate polling firm in the 2025 Ontario Provincial Election.

“Despite the hype, only 23% of Ontario businesses say AI adoption increased in the past year,” said Joe Noss, co-founder of Publicus. “Two-thirds saw no change, decreases, or no adoption at all. The idea that AI is transforming every workplace overnight just isn’t true.”

An Implementation Gap shows AI clustered in easy applications, 71% in marketing and 61% in finance, while most businesses avoid deeper uses. More than 60% don’t use AI in sales, logistics, or product delivery.

There’s also a Perception Chasm. Business leaders see AI as overwhelmingly positive, with up to 85% citing benefits, while the public is far more skeptical. A majority (55%) believe AI is hurting sales and customer service, and only finance earns modest support.

The survey points to a Trust Catastrophe in institutions. Ontarians report negative impacts for universities (89%), film (60%), insurance (58%), and healthcare (47%).

A sharp Data Privacy Divide also emerges: 64% of business leaders support uploading customer data into AI, compared to just 21% of the public. A similar gap exists on government use of AI to pre-fill applications (76% vs. 46%).

Finally, a Government Support Vacuum persists. Roughly 70% of both business leaders and employees don’t know about or don’t believe in existing government AI support programs.

“This survey lays bare the adoption paradox: businesses are cautiously experimenting with AI, but the public is unconvinced, and there is little trust in the use of AI by major institutions. The opportunity is real, but without rebuilding confidence, pushing AI harder risks backlash," said David Valentin, Principal at Liaison Strategies.

The survey carries a margin of error of ±3.4% for the general population and ±4.3% for the business leader sample, 19 times out of 20.

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Read the Report:

About Publicus
Publicus is an AI-powered platform transforming Canada’s broken procurement system. By empowering Canadian small and medium-sized businesses to find and win more government contracts, Publicus is democratizing access to procurement opportunities. Founded by former Deloitte consultant Joe Noss and Loblaw Digital AI engineer Akash Shetty, Publicus is Ontario’s fastest-growing govtech startup.

About Liaison Strategies
Liaison Strategies is a national public opinion research firm. With 13 years of experience in Canadian polling, David Valentin, principal, has fielded hundreds of projects at the municipal, provincial and federal levels and appeared across Canadian media to discuss insights. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), Canada’s voice of the research, analytics, and insights profession both domestically and globally.