Four in five small European firms still use no AI
Four in five small European firms still use no AI
Every year Eurostat asks European businesses which AI technologies they use, and publishes the answers. The 2025 figures landed this year. Read them before you assume AI is already handled everywhere around you.
What the numbers say
| Firms | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| EU, 250 staff or more | 41.2% | 55.0% |
| EU, 50 to 249 staff | 21.0% | 30.4% |
| EU, 10 to 49 staff | 11.2% | 17.0% |
| Ireland, 10 to 49 staff | 11.8% | 16.8% |
Source: Eurostat, dataset isoc_eb_ai, counting "enterprises using at least one AI technology", as a percentage of enterprises. The survey counts firms with 10 or more employees.
Two things stand out. Adoption is climbing, and it is concentrated at the top. Of the largest European businesses, more than half now use some form of AI. Among firms with 10 to 49 staff the figure is 17 per cent, which leaves about four in five of them using none of it.
Why the gap sits where it does
A large firm has an IT department, a budget line, and a person whose job is to run a pilot and report on it. A firm with fifteen staff has an owner, and the owner already carries the enquiries, the quotes and the invoices. Doing AI properly takes weeks of attention a small business does not have spare, so it sits with everything else that never reaches the top of the list.
What the numbers do not tell you
None of this says AI is right for your business. Some of that 17 per cent are getting real value, and some are paying for subscriptions nobody opens. The statistic counts how many firms have started. Whether you should start depends on whether your week holds repetitive admin and a flow of inbound enquiries. That is a question about your business, not the market.
Where this install fits
We install one agent per business, on the business's own server, for a fixed price, and no monthly fee for access to it. The work it takes over is what lands on one desk: answering the enquiries, booking the appointments, sending the reminders, chasing the quotes that went quiet, and logging all of it to your CRM. The agent, the data and the server remain yours.
See what the install includes, or read about what you own once it is running.