AI on the rise among European businesses: How are they using it?

Over 13% of EU businesses with at least 10 employees have embraced Artificial Intelligence, says Eurostat, a 5.5% increase from 2023, with all member states reporting growth in the use of AI technology.

Large companies - meaning those with at least 250 employees - reported much higher AI use: 42% on average.

There are also significant differences in the most used types of AI technology, with text mining, deep learning and workflow automation features being the most prevalent.

In general, the most used feature across EU business is text mining (7%), meaning the analysis of written texts, followed by natural language generation (5.4%), which is the automated creation of written or spoken language. Speech recognition, meaning converting spoken language into a machine-readable format, is third at 4.8%.

Which European countries are using AI the most in business?

Denmark leads in AI adoption among companies at 27.6%, followed by Sweden at 25.1% and Belgium at 24.7%.

Romania has the lowest rate (3.1%), followed by Poland (5.9%) and Bulgaria (6.5%).

When taking only large companies into account, Finland leads with 70%, while big economies like France and Italy stand below the EU average, with approximately a third of large businesses there using AI.

Germany and Spain are above the EU average with adoption rates of 48% and 44%, respectively.