Industry Perspective
Plumbers, electricians and independent repair shops have spent two years working out where AI belongs in a hands-on business. The pattern that emerged is worth understanding before anyone in memorial care decides what to do about it.
01 · The surprise
The impression from the headlines is that every business is already running on AI. The measured reality is nothing like it. When ServiceTitan surveyed 1,032 contractors across seven trades in 2026 — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage door, pest control, landscaping — just 12% had embedded AI into their operations. Another 34% were experimenting.
The US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey put overall business AI use at 17–20% between December 2025 and May 2026 — and firms with fewer than 20 employees, the size most funeral homes are, stayed under 20%while enterprises above 250 employees reached 37%. Vendor-run surveys in the same year claimed 68–82%. The gap is not dishonesty so much as definition: the Census counts businesses that have built AI into how they operate, while a vendor survey counts anyone who has tried a tool once.
It is worth holding onto that distinction. Trying something is not the same as running on it, and the businesses seeing real gains are the ones that got past experimenting.
02 · The pattern
Where AI took hold in the trades was not the craft. Nobody asked software to solder a joint. It arrived in the work around the work — answering the phone after hours, drafting the paperwork, handling the scheduling — and left the skilled part to the person with the skill.
Adoption in plumbing went from 7% in 2024 to 19% in 2026. Among contractors already using it, 62% reported measurable gains in efficiency, many saving three or more hours a week. Not a transformed trade — an afternoon back.
03 · The objection
The expectation was that tradespeople would refuse it. They didn't. Asked what was holding them back, contractors named lack of training (44%) and integration complexity (44%). Only 18% cited employee resistance.
People were not opposed to the tool. They had not been shown how to use it, or how it fit what they already did. That is a solvable problem, and a very different one from a workforce that does not want the help.
Meanwhile 66% expect moderate or major change to their business within one to three years. They can see it coming. Most simply have not started.
04 · What it means for memorial care
Three things carry over. AI belongs around the craft, not in place of it — no software conducts a service or sits with a family. The gains are practical rather than dramatic: hours returned, not a reinvented business. And the barrier is knowing how, not willingness.
Memorial care differs in one way that matters. A funeral director's work carries a weight a scheduling tool never does, and anything touching a family's photographs has to clear a higher bar than efficiency. Dignified or it does not belong at the service.
But the timing is the same, and it is unusually favourable. At 12% embedded adoption across comparable businesses, the firms deciding this now are not catching up. They are the ones families will remember as having offered something no one else in town could.
AI is reshaping what families expect from a memorial service. We're here to help you offer it thoughtfully—a step ahead, with the dignity the moment deserves.
Sources
Figures current as of the 2026 surveys cited. Publisher and report names are given in full so each claim stays checkable even if a link moves.