Ask a landscaping owner whether AI matters to their business, and most say yes. Ask whether they use it every day, and the answer changes fast.

That gap sits at the center of the 2027 Commercial Landscape Industry Report. Aspire surveyed 1,020 commercial landscape business owners, executives, and senior decision-makers through Thrive Analytics in July 2026. On nearly every topic, beliefs changed faster than the businesses. 

Here are just a few of the findings, and what each one means for your 2027 plan. Download the full industry report to see how your operations measure up to the competition.

Belief in AI jumped. Daily use stayed put.

In last year’s survey, 29% of operators named AI among the most helpful emerging technologies. This year, 43% did. Another 52% expect to increase their AI software budget over the next 12 months.

That’s a big jump in AI adoption from last year, and it’s significant that half the industry is willing to put budget behind their beliefs. But the daily habits look different.

Forty-eight percent use AI in some form, but only 15% use it every day. 

Among the 490 operators who use it at all, 67% use it for general research and 52% for drafting content. 

→ Only 16% use it for estimating and 11% for scheduling. 

Daily operations are where AI can have the most significant impact on operational efficiency, data hygiene, and making informed decisions about the business.

Operators gave three main reasons for holding back: 

1. Upfront cost (48%)

2. Not understanding the technology well enough (46%)

3. Not trusting the accuracy of what it produces (29%)

Estimating and scheduling are where labor and margin get won or lost. They’re also where AI shows up least.

To close the gap between intention and execution, operators need AI built on top of the processes they already run — not another bolted-on tool to find, test, and learn to trust separately. That’s the thinking behind Aspire Command Center, which lets you ask questions about your business in plain English and get answers pulled straight from your own Aspire data, instead of pulling reports by hand. If 67% of operators are already comfortable using AI for research, pointing that same habit at your own job costs, labor hours, and margins is a much shorter leap than adopting a whole new system. 

Contractors saw growth in 2025, but not much

Fifty-two percent of survey respondents grew revenue, but just 15% grew by more than 10%. 

Seventeen percent held flat, and 24% declined. Among companies that grew, roughly three in four grew by 10% or less.

Goals for business owners in 2027 focused on size over health. 

• Seventy-nine percent want to grow revenue, and 71% want new customers. 

• Only 39% name higher margins as a goal, even though 57% expect profit to rise. 

Three of the top four goals are about growth, and only one, improving cash flow at 45%, is about financial health. 

 If you keep losing your biggest customers, signing new ones won’t get your revenue growing. Aspire’s Revenue Retention feature shows you which customers are likely to leave and what to do to keep them. That lets you put your time into growing the business and stop chasing new work just to replace customers who walked away.

Understanding costs continues to be a challenge

Eighty-five percent of operators saw material and equipment prices rise over the past year, and 41% saw increases of 10% or more. 

Seventy-two percent report longer lead times, with 31% waiting a month or more. 

Labor is moving in the same direction: 70% plan to raise crew pay, and 11% plan raises of 10% or more.

Staffing and material costs now tie as the top risk to 2027 goals, each at 53%. 

Only half the market is growing revenue, so the raises to crew pay become a cost that operators must absorb just to keep their crews, not rewarding strong team members for a strong year. 

Fast invoices, slow payment

Billing speed isn’t the bottleneck. Seventy-seven percent of operators send invoices within four business days of finishing the work. 

But the timeline slips during collection. Sixty percent of survey respondents say they regularly get paid after their own terms, and 18% wait a month or more past the deadline.

Maintenance-heavy companies show the sharpest version. Eighty percent bill within four days, the fastest of any group. Only 31% get paid on schedule, the lowest on-time rate of any segment in the survey. The group that bills fastest collects slowest.

It’s no surprise that 45% of operators name better cash flow as a 2027 goal.

Plenty of software. None of it connected. Efficiency falls through the cracks.

Most operators own tools for individual jobs: 

✓ Accounting (76%)

✓ Invoicing (67%)

✓ Marketing (66%)

✓ Payroll (64%)

✓ Estimating (63%)

✓ GPS tracking (59%)

Fewer, at 57%, run an end-to-end business management system that ties those pieces together.

Landscaping contractors want their software to perform in specific ways. Workflow automation tops the list of motivators, followed by operational efficiency. A little less than half said whether a system is all-in-one shapes their final choice, and a third are concerned with how well it integrates with what they currently use.

Despite the interest in addressing technology shortfalls, many operators haven’t followed through. 

• Fifty-nine percent rate digital transformation at the top of the importance scale, but only 23% are increasing investment in software or technology

The cost of switching explains the gap in interest versus action. Among operators who already run a business management system, 65% say they’re unlikely to switch in the next 12 to 18 months. The top barriers are cost (63%), onboarding time (52%) and not having time to research alternatives (49%).

Company size and work mix impact decision-making

Larger companies lead on technology. At $16M and up, 24% use AI every day, compared with 11% at both $3M-8M and $9M-15M. 

Twenty-eight percent of the smallest companies aren’t budgeting for AI at all, against 8% of the largest. Even at the top, AI for crew scheduling sits at 10% and AI for estimating or bidding at 12%.

What a company does matters as much as its size. Pure-construction companies are having the toughest stretch: over a third saw revenue decline in the past year and expect a worse upcoming year. They’re also the heaviest AI users, at just over half. 

Hybrid operators, who split their work between maintenance and construction, are the most open to switching software, at 57%.

Attitudes are changing, but operations remain stagnant

Taken together, one pattern emerges. Even as operators know they need to upgrade technology and implement AI in their daily operations, their workday remains the same. 

In 2027, business owners want growth, protected margins, faster payment, and smarter tools. Their systems, staffing, and processes support some of that today.

The report suggests the dividing line in 2027 won’t be between companies that use AI and those that don’t. Plenty already do. The line falls between operators who fold new technology into everyday work and those who keep adding tools without connecting them to what they already have.

Aspire, part of the ServiceTitan family of solutions, helps landscaping contractors connect their desire for better technology to daily operations. By bringing every aspect—estimating, job costing, scheduling, purchasing, and invoicing—into an end-to-end solution, it creates a comprehensive data library. Built-in AI lets you query that data and easily identify opportunities to reduce waste, redundancy, and inefficiency, protecting and increasing revenue.

Want the full data, including breakdowns by company size, work mix and region? Download the 2027 Commercial Landscape Industry Report.