While AGN are considered to be key drivers of the evolution of massive galaxies, their potentially significant role in the dwarf-galaxy regime (M∗ < 109 M⊙) remains largely unexplored. We combine optical and infrared data, from the Hyper SuprimeCam (HSC) and the Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) respectively, to explore the properties of ∼800 AGN in dwarfs at low redshift (z < 0.3). Infrared-selected AGN fractions are ∼10 – 30 per cent in dwarfs, which, for reasonable duty cycles, indicates a high BH-occupation fraction. Visual inspection of the deep HSC images indicates that the merger fraction in dwarf AGN (∼6 per cent) shows no excess compared to a control sample of non-AGN, suggesting that the AGN-triggering processes are secular in nature. Energetic arguments indicate that, in both dwarfs and massive galaxies, bolometric AGN luminosities (LAGN) are significantly greater than supernova luminosities (LSN ). LAGN/LSN is, in fact, higher in dwarfs, with predictions from simulations suggesting that this ratio only increases with redshift. Together with the potentially high BH-occupation fraction, this suggests that, if AGN feedback is an important driver of massive-galaxy evolution, the same is likely to be true in the dwarf regime, contrary to our classical thinking.