There is no shortage of opinions about what artificial intelligence will do to the economy. Some say it will transform everything. Others argue the benefits are being overstated. The truth, as always, tends to sit somewhere in between, but it helps enormously to have real data from real businesses rather than speculation.
That is exactly what a new piece of research gives us. Working on a large-scale survey of more than 7000 companies in Germany. The Deutsche Bundesbank has recently produced one of the most detailed pictures of how the German economy is actually developing. The survey often covers manufacturing services, span 2024 to 2026, and not only focuses on whether firms are using AI but also showcases how much they are spending on it and why economies they are expecting.
The Speed of Adoption: Numbers That Tell a Story
Let us start with the most basic question: how many German companies are actually using generative AI?
The answer has changed quite fast. Back in 2024, only 26% of the firms in this survey said they were using generative AI or expected to use it during that year. That is roughly one in four businesses. A year later, in 2025, the figure had moved to 44%. By 2026, the survey projects it will cross 56%, which means more than half of all firms covered.
To put that into perspective, this kind of growth in adoption is faster than what we saw with earlier technologies like enterprise software or even broadband internet in the early 2000s. Generative AI is spreading through the German corporate sector at a speed that few technologies have matched.
But adoption numbers only tell part of the story. The research also measured how intensively employees are actually using AI tools during their working day. Among companies that started using AI early and kept using it throughout the survey period, the share of working hours involving AI tools rose from 7.5% in 2024 to 10.2% in 2025. By 2026, that number is expected to reach 12.6%. Firms that joined later tend to start lower, around 6 to 7% and work their way up gradually. The message is clear: once AI in German firms takes hold, usage tends to deepen over time.
Who Is Adopting and Who Is Waiting?
Not every company in Germany is moving at the same speed and the gaps are worth understanding.
Larger companies are well ahead of smaller ones. This is not surprising in itself. Big firms have the budget to experiment, the technical teams to implement and the scale to see measurable returns. Smaller firms, including many in the famous German Mittelstand, face real barriers: limited IT capacity, tighter budgets and fewer staff who have worked with AI tools before.
There are also clear differences between sectors. Service sector companies are adopting faster overall, which fits with the fact that generative AI is particularly good at tasks like writing, summarising, translating and answering questions. However, German manufacturing firms are also showing meaningful uptake, which is notable because manufacturing tends to lag in digital adoption compared to services.
Another important finding concerns firms that were already using advanced technologies before the AI wave arrived. Companies that had already invested in cloud computing or robotics were significantly more likely to have adopted AI. This tells us that digital readiness is a real condition for AI adoption. Firms that had already done the hard work of building digital infrastructure found it much easier to bring AI tools in on top of that foundation.
Across Europe, German firms compare well. The average AI adoption rate across 32 European countries stood at around 20% in 2025. Germany was clearly above that figure, reflecting both the maturity of its business sector and a growing willingness to invest in new technologies despite a difficult economic period for the country.
Spending on AI: Rising, But With a Ceiling in Sight
One of the most useful things this research does is actually look at what companies are spending on AI. This kind of data is hard to come by, which makes these findings stand out.
The survey confirms that spending on generative AI is rising steadily from 2024 to 2026. But there is an important qualifier: the pace of growth is not expected to carry on indefinitely. The research points to diminishing returns as firms move through different stages of putting AI to work.
The reason is practical. In the early stages, companies focus on applications that are easy to deploy and deliver quick, visible benefits: summarising reports, drafting emails, handling routine customer queries, generating first drafts of written content. Once those easy wins are secured, the next layer of applications tends to be more complex and slower to deliver returns.
There is good news on costs, though. Firms are getting more out of every euro they spend. The data shows a clear improvement in usage achieved per unit of expenditure. This reflects two forces: the price of AI tools in the market has been falling and firms are learning to use the technology more efficiently. Both together mean the effective cost of AI in German firms is coming down even as total spending rises.
What Firms Actually Expect to Gain
The survey asked firms directly what they expect AI to deliver across key economic areas. The table below brings those responses together.
| Economic Area | What Firms Expect | Additional Context |
| Productivity | A clear positive rise | Employees are expected to handle more work in less time as AI takes on routine tasks |
| Wages | Upward movement | Higher demand for skilled, AI-capable workers is expected to push pay levels up |
| High-skilled employment | Increase in demand | More workers will be needed to manage, check, and work alongside AI systems |
| Low-skilled employment | Broadly stable | Firms do not currently expect significant job losses in this group in the near term |
| AI spending levels | Rising through 2026, then slowing | Growth will moderate once the most accessible applications have been rolled out |
The overall picture is cautiously positive. Firms expect AI to make them more productive and to lift wages, especially for workers with the skills to use the technology well. The worry that AI will cause rapid and widespread job losses, particularly at the lower end of the skills ladder, is not well supported by what business leaders are currently seeing and planning for.
What This Means for Workers
The employment findings deserve a closer look, because public debate on this topic is often shaped more by fear than by actual evidence from businesses.
For higher-skilled workers, the near-term outlook looks positive. Companies expect to need more people who understand how to work with AI, manage its outputs, verify its accuracy and apply it to complex business challenges. This kind of work requires judgment, experience and professional knowledge. It is not easily automated and demand for it is growing.
For lower-skilled workers, the picture is more stable than many people expect. The businesses surveyed do not currently plan significant reductions in this group. In such a stage of AI development, various organizations are using the technology that supports and enhances existing work rather than replaces it. The customer services team might use these AI-driven tools to write responses in a faster way, but the same number of people can still be needed to handle the complex cases, maintain the quality of services and manage complex conversations.
It is equally important to be honest about what we are not aware of. There are short- to medium-scale expectations. As AI tools enhance businesses, build more expressively with them.
Placing Germany in the Wider European Picture
AI adoption is very uneven across Europe. The Northern and western countries in Europe that include the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden are quicker in adapting to AI. Whereas, the numerous other Eastern European countries have been held behind in adapting to AI because of lower digital infrastructure, smaller average firm sizes and also weaker investment capacity in the new technologies.
The German cities benefit from the AI-driven productivity improvements because of a robust industrial base and a large service sector that puts them in a good position. However, the threat of a two-speed economy in Germany itself is real. If AI in German firms constantly keep spreading at a fast speed among the large, already-productive companies, while the small entreprises remain behind, the economic gains in the country may not be widely shared as they could be. This is a challenge that policymakers and industry bodies will need to take seriously in the years to come.
Key Points From the Research
This AI technology in German companies is moving through a major European economy, as the study on AI is building one of the clearest fact-based pictures. A very few conclusions stand out clearly from the data:
- The adoption of AI has reached a historical fast pace, that is, from 26% in 2024 to 56% in 2026. This is new for any business technology.
- The digitally mature companies and large firms are leading the way, while the smaller firms face the actual barriers and are slowly catching up.
- Once the most accessible and scalable applications have been put in place, it will moderate the AI spending that has been rising steadily.
- The firms here expect productivity benefits and higher wages, along with high-skilled workers seeing the most direct and immediate benefits.
- The low-skilled employees are expected to stay broadly stable in the near term as the future developments will also depend heavily on how AI capabilities are evolving.
- The most effective cost of making use of AI in German companies is the decrease in the market price and the companies’ learning to get more from the tools they have.
This is the survey that is grounded in real-time data from several businesses, which makes it far more reliable than the general forecasts or headline-level commentary. Now tracking these numbers will develop over the next two to three years and this will be more important for anyone who wants to understand what AI is genuinely doing to the German and broader European economies.
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