Artificial intelligence, companies start running but the gap with large EU countries remains

In the flood of theses, articles and reports that have been flooding in on the subject of artificial intelligence for some years now, there is often a basic consideration missing, namely that it is a crucial industrial policy issue. This is demonstrated by the most recent data on the use of artificial intelligence by companies, first published by Istat, then taken up by Confindustria and somewhat developed a few days ago by the Bank of Italy in its annual report. The data testify to a certain liveliness, especially in the last year, but in a context that still sees us lagging behind the largest economies with which we compare ourselves.

Istat's figures, taken up in a recent report by the Confindustria working group on artificial intelligence, say that in 2024 the share of Italian companies with at least 10 employees using AI was 8.2 per cent, still a low percentage. The Bank of Italy's survey, which is more recent because it is based on interviews conducted between February and May 2025, and refers to a somewhat larger number of companies with at least 20 employees, is more optimistic. There is talk of rapid expansion. In this group of companies, those employing predictive or generative tools have reached 27 per cent, an increase of 14 percentage points over 2024 and a trend that is shared by both manufacturing and the service sector. However, about half of the companies surveyed do not plan to use these technologies in the next two years and we are still far behind other major European countries such as Germany, where the adoption rate is around 50 per cent, and Spain where it is 30 per cent.

In short, an industrial policy problem could arise in the next few years. Also because in the national law on artificial intelligence, drawn up by the government and now being examined by Parliament, there are no immediate measures but references to general principles and subsequent measures. For now, in Article 5, we are stuck with a delegation to the government committing the state to promote the development of artificial intelligence to improve human-machine interaction in productive sectors, and to foster the creation of a market in this sector that is innovative and competitive. Or to encourage collaborative research between companies and research and technology transfer centres. In short, only a framework for now, which the government will have to substantiate carefully in the implementing decrees, and probably with adequate resources, if the intention is really to excel in Europe in this field.