European Union businesses markedly increased their adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024, with Cyprus showing modest growth but remaining below the EU average, according to the latest Eurostat data.
The percentage of EU companies with 10 or more employees using AI technologies rose to 13.5% in 2024 from 8% in 2023, while Cyprus saw an increase to 7.9% from 4.67% during the same period.
Denmark led AI adoption among member states at 27.6%, followed by Sweden (25.1%) and Belgium (24.7%). Romania recorded the lowest uptake at 3.1%, with Poland and Bulgaria following at 5.9% and 6.5% respectively.
Sweden showed the strongest year-on-year growth with a 14.7 percentage point increase, while Denmark and Belgium saw rises of 12.4 and 10.9 percentage points respectively. Portugal, Romania and Spain reported the smallest increases.
Text analysis was the most widely adopted AI technology, used by 6.9% of businesses, followed by text or speech generation at 5.4% and speech-to-machine format conversion at 4.8%, the survey of 157,000 companies showed.
The study, conducted by national statistical authorities in early 2024, covered 1.54 million EU businesses, of which 83% were small enterprises, 14% medium-sized, and 3% large companies.
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