European AI adoption and skills gap

A July 2026 Hyland study of 3,000 European IT leaders showed that AI deployment across enterprises had surged dramatically, with 15 % of organisations now using AI in every key system—a 650 % increase from the previous year. At the same time, the underlying content‑services layer that supports AI fell in maturity, dropping 13 points to a score of 56, and many firms reported fragmented, hard‑to‑access data and insufficiently connected systems, especially in Germany. Cloud adoption rose, but nearly 60 % of companies said innovation pilots were stalling because of data silos.

A week later, data on AI use in 2025 indicated that 20 % of EU firms with at least ten employees were employing AI tools, up from 13.5 % the year before. The rapid spread of generative AI such as ChatGPT created a pronounced skills gap: while many workers can operate the tools for simple tasks, few can integrate them strategically across functions. Companies now seek AI‑savvy staff for marketing, HR, operations, sales, customer service, and data management, and the World Economic Forum warned that 40 % of required job skills could change before 2030, underscoring the urgency of upskilling the European workforce.