Use of AI Technologies in European Enterprises in 2024

In 2024, 13.5% of companies in the European Union with 10 or more employees used artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in their operations, according to data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office. The share of EU firms using AI technologies increased by 5.5 percentage points compared to 2023, when it was 8%.

Last year, Bulgaria ranked 25th in the EU in terms of the share of companies using AI technologies in their business operations (6.5% of all enterprises with 10 or more employees), up from 3.62% in 2023. Poland (5.9%) and Romania (3.1%) followed Bulgaria, with Romania ranking last. In 2023, Bulgaria was second to last (26th place), but it moved up one position in the ranking in 2024.

Denmark maintained its leading position in the EU in 2024, with 27.6% of enterprises using AI technologies, followed by Sweden (25.1%), Belgium (24.7%), and Finland (24.4%).

All EU member states registered an increase in the share of enterprises using AI technologies compared to 2023. Sweden saw the largest growth (+14.7 percentage points), followed by Denmark (+12.4 p.p.) and Belgium (+10.9 p.p.).

By contrast, modest increases were recorded in Portugal (+0.8 p.p.), Romania (+1.6 p.p.), Spain (+2.1 p.p.), Poland (+2.2 p.p.), and Bulgaria (+2.85 p.p.).

Enterprises in the EU Using AI Technologies in 2023 and 2024 (in %)

EU enterprises continued to adopt various AI technologies to enhance their operations in 2024.
The most used AI technology was written language analysis, adopted by 6.9% of enterprises—an increase of 4 percentage points compared to the previous year.
The second most used AI technology in 2024 was generation of written or spoken language, used by 5.4% of enterprises (up 3.3 p.p. compared to 2023).
This was followed by speech-to-text conversion (speech recognition), used by 4.8% of enterprises (up 2.2 p.p. year-over-year).

Types of AI Technologies Used by Enterprises in the EU in 2023 and 2024 (in %)

Artificial intelligence refers to systems that use technologies such as text analysis (or text extraction—transforming unstructured text into structured data for easier analysis), computer vision (enabling computers to identify and understand objects and people in images and videos), speech recognition, natural language generation, machine learning, and deep learning to collect and/or use data for predicting, recommending, or decision-making.
AI technologies are integrated into systems used for text analysis and information extraction, voice message transcription, and for recognizing and generating language models.