Received:
2026-01-11 | Accepted:
2026-03-24 | Published:
2026-06-30
Title
Current trends in the adoption of AI technologies in small and medium-sized enterprises in the European Union
Abstract
This study analyses the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU-27 during 2021–2025 and examines whether this diffusion leads to convergence or persistent disparities across countries. Using harmonised Eurostat indicators on enterprises employing at least one AI technology by size class (10–49 and 50–249 employees), the study combines descriptive analysis with σ-convergence (coefficient of variation) and β-convergence regressions linking average log growth to initial adoption levels. Club convergence analysis is additionally applied to identify heterogeneous dynamics across groups of countries. The results show rapid growth in SME AI adoption: the share of small enterprises using AI increased from 6.1% to 17.0%, while among medium-sized enterprises it rose from 12.6% to 30.4%. Relative dispersion declined (CV: 0.69→0.52 for small firms; 0.62→0.45 for medium-sized firms), indicating σ-convergence, while β-convergence is statistically significant in both segments (β = −0.0815, p < 0.01; β = −0.0872, p < 0.001). However, club convergence analysis shows that convergence is concentrated among high-adoption economies, whereas low-adoption countries display increasing internal divergence. These findings suggest that accelerated AI diffusion alone does not ensure balanced digital transformation, highlighting the importance of targeted SME capability-building in lagging ecosystems.
Keywords
artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), AI adoption, adoption gap, convergence, divergence, European Union (EU)
JEL classifications
O33
, L26
, C23
, O52
URI
http://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/6646
DOI
Pages
152-169
Funding
The article has been developed and funded within the Daugavpils University's (Latvia) research project No 14-95/2026/17 "AI-Based Enterprise Transformation and Its Impact on Managerial Decision Quality".
This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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