Workforces seem steady, with 44.1% hiring and practically half anticipating no change in staffing ranges. Solely 11.2% predict layoffs.
One of many clearest shifts rising from the survey is a fast transfer towards synthetic intelligence as a buffer towards rising prices. The information reveals 23% of companies have already applied AI options to cut back tariff affect, whereas 41.9% are assessing their choices. Sensible functions vary from exploring new export markets (45.9%) to shoring up home provide chains (41%) and utilizing dynamic pricing instruments (39.3%).
“There’s a strategic shift underway amongst Canadian companies,” says Chandrashekar LSP, Managing Director, Zoho Canada. “They aren’t ready for financial circumstances to stabilize – they’re proactively redesigning their operations. The transfer towards AI and automation is about constructing resilience, enhancing margins, and defending buyer expertise in an setting the place prices are rising and predictability is difficult to come back by. That stage of adaptability is why optimism stays robust going into 2026.”
Know-how priorities have additionally developed, with effectivity and innovation taking priority over versatile work initiatives. In the meantime, buyer expertise ranks second amongst total enterprise priorities, and expertise improvement continues to sit down on the backside, regardless of labour market challenges.
The findings recommend that whereas Canadian SMEs stay uneasy about government-driven commerce constraints, they’re much less targeted on funding assist than on decreasing interprovincial boundaries and opening entry to extra worldwide companions.
