Data & Research March 8, 2026 • 12 min read • Updated: 9 November 2026

AI adoption
statistics 2026

The definitive overview of AI adoption by businesses, across industries and company sizes, with investment figures, workforce data and the EU ranking. Every figure links to its source. Updated 9 November 2026. For teams ready to act on this data, our AI marketing agency turns research into revenue.

33%

of Dutch businesses with 10+ employed persons use AI

+10 pp vs. 2024

Source: CBS, 2026

17%

of all Dutch businesses (2+ employed) use AI

2023: 8%

Source: CBS, 2025

#6

in the EU for business AI use

EU average: 19.95%

Source: Eurostat, 2025

Section 1 — Overview

AI adoption overview

AI adoption is rising fast, but from a lower base than many headlines suggest. Official statistics count businesses that use at least one AI technology, and the share depends on which businesses you count: one in three Dutch businesses with 10 or more employed persons, one in six when you include businesses with 2 to 9 people. Smaller companies in particular benefit from structured AI marketing support for SMBs to close the adoption gap. For Dutch companies, how to use these figures when automating follow-up: read more about our marketing automation agency (in Dutch).

2021

13%

Businesses 10+ (NL)

2023

14%

Businesses 10+ (NL)

2024

23%

Businesses 10+ (NL)

2025

33%

latest

Sources: CBS, 2026, Eurostat, 2025

Among Dutch businesses with 10 or more employed persons, AI use rose from 13% in 2021 to 33% in 2025. Counting all businesses with 2 or more employed persons, the share was 17% in 2025, up from 13% in 2024 and 8% in 2023 (provisional figures). Eurostat reports a break in the Dutch series in 2025, so part of the jump from 23% to 33% may come from a change in measurement. Across the EU, 19.95% of businesses with 10+ employees used AI in 2025, up from 13.48% in 2024.

Sources: CBS, 2025, CBS, 2026, Eurostat, 2025

Most common AI applications

AI technologies used by Dutch businesses with 10+ employees (excluding the financial sector) in 2025, with the EU average in brackets:

  • Text mining (analysing written language): 22.93% (EU 11.75%)
  • Generating written or spoken language: 16.34% (EU 8.76%)
  • Generating images, video or audio: 14.92% (EU 9.55%)
  • Speech recognition: 11.61% (EU 7.22%)
  • Machine learning for data analysis: 9.51% (EU 5.10%)
  • Automating workflows or supporting decisions: 8.45% (EU 5.35%)
  • Image recognition: 5.20% (EU 3.78%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025

What businesses use AI for

Share of Dutch businesses using AI (2+ employed persons) that apply it to each purpose, 2025:

  • Marketing or sales: 35%
  • Business administration or management: 32%
  • R&D or innovation: 25%
  • Production or service processes: 18%
  • Accounting, controlling or finance: 17%
  • ICT security: 11%
  • Logistics: 4%

Across the EU, marketing or sales is also the top purpose: 34.70% of businesses using AI apply it there.

Sources: CBS, 2025, Eurostat, 2025

Section 2 — By Industry

AI adoption by industry

The gap between industries is large. Information and communication leads by a wide margin, while transport, construction and hospitality trail. Financial services made the biggest jump in a year. Many businesses start with a modern AI marketing stack that plugs directly into existing tools.

Information & communication 54%
54%
Specialist business services 31%
31%
Financial services 28%
28%
Real estate 21%
21%
Energy, water & waste 18%
18%
Manufacturing 16%
16%
Rental & other services 16%
16%
Healthcare & welfare 16%
16%
Trade 12%
12%
Transport & storage 7%
7%
Construction 7%
7%
Hospitality 6%
6%

Share of Dutch businesses (2+ employed persons) using AI, 2025 (provisional). Source: CBS, 2025

Information & communication: 54%

Up from 28% in 2023 and 49% in 2024. Among businesses with 10 or more employed persons in this sector, 70% use AI.

Financial services: 28%

The biggest jump in one year: from 16% in 2024 to 28% in 2025 (2023: 14%). Among financial businesses with 10+ employed persons, 59% use AI.

Transport & storage: 7%

Still among the lowest shares: 4% in 2024 and 7% in 2023. Among larger businesses (10+), hospitality, transport and construction are at 16 to 21%.

Healthcare & welfare: 16%

Up from 8% in 2023 and 10% in 2024. The EU AI Act adds stricter rules for high-risk AI from 2 December 2027 and 2 August 2028.

The picture is very different for larger businesses. Among businesses with 10 or more employed persons, 70% in information and communication, 59% in financial services and 55% in specialist business services use AI, against 16 to 21% in hospitality, transport and construction.

Sources: CBS, 2025, CBS, 2026, European Commission, 2026

Section 3 — Company Size

SMB vs enterprise

The gap between large and small businesses is still wide, and in percentage points it is growing: larger businesses are adding AI faster than micro businesses. AI-as-a-service tools make adoption easier for smaller teams, but most small businesses have not even considered AI yet.

Micro (2-9)

14%

use AI

2023: 7%

Source: CBS, 2025

SMB (10-249)

31.9%

use AI

EU average: 18.9%

Source: Eurostat, 2025

Enterprise (250+)

66%

use AI

2023: 42%

Source: CBS, 2025

Why businesses don't use AI

73% Lack of experience with AI
49% Privacy concerns
42% Unclear legal consequences, such as liability
15% AI is not useful for the business

Share of Dutch businesses that considered AI but do not use it (2025). About three quarters of businesses never considered AI at all.

Fastest growth by company size

+25 pp 50-249 employed: 20% (2023) to 45% (2025)
+24 pp 250+ employed: 42% to 66%
+16 pp 10-49 employed: 11% to 27%
+7 pp 2-9 employed: 7% to 14%

Growth in AI use 2023 to 2025, in percentage points (calculated from CBS figures).

Sources: CBS, 2025, Eurostat, 2025

Section 4 — Investment

AI investment landscape

Capital is pouring into AI, but very unevenly. The US attracts the vast majority of private AI investment and Europe a fraction. In the Netherlands, public money flows mainly through the National Growth Fund and the WBSO R&D tax credit.

Global private AI investment

$344.7B

2025, +127.5% vs. 2024

Source: Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026

United States

$285.9B

private AI investment 2025

Source: Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026

Europe

$20.9B

AI investment 2025

Source: Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026

China

$12.4B

private only, excludes state funds

Source: Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026

Global AI investment in 2025

Indicator 2025 Note
Corporate AI investment $581.69 billion record total
Private AI investment $344.66 billion +127.5% vs. 2024
Mergers and acquisitions $214.44 billion part of corporate investment
Newly funded AI companies +71% US: 1,953 newly funded AI companies
Generative AI private investment +200% or more nearly half of all private AI funding

China's private figure likely understates its total AI spending: Stanford HAI notes that government guidance funds deployed an estimated $184 billion into AI firms between 2000 and 2023.

Source: Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026

Government policy and subsidies

  • AiNed (National Growth Fund): up to €276 million for the Dutch AI programme, of which €44 million allocated, €44 million conditionally allocated and €188 million reserved (decision 2021) (Universiteit Leiden, 2021)
  • WBSO R&D tax credit: 18,932 businesses used the WBSO in 2025 and RVO granted €1.9 billion in tax benefit; project applications involving AI are 77% higher than five years earlier (RVO, 2026)
  • No reliable figure: we found no verifiable source for the size of the Dutch AI market or for venture capital raised by Dutch AI startups in 2025, so this page no longer shows those numbers

Section 5 — Workforce

AI & the workforce

Demand for tech talent outstrips supply. The Netherlands has a relatively large ICT workforce, yet most businesses that look for ICT specialists struggle to hire. Meanwhile, AI use at work is already common: companies need AI-literate professionals across marketing, sales and operations.

ICT specialists (NL)

708,800

2025, 7.2% of employment (EU 5.0%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025

Hard-to-fill vacancies

63%

of NL businesses recruiting ICT specialists (EU 57.5%)

Source: Eurostat, 2024

AI talent density

10.9

AI professionals per 10,000 inhabitants, highest in Europe

Source: Techleap, 2026

Generative AI at work

26.6%

of Dutch people aged 16-74 (EU 15.4%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025

Why ICT vacancies are hard to fill

Indicator (businesses with 10+ employees, 2024) Netherlands EU
Recruited or tried to recruit ICT specialists 15.3% 9.55%
Of those: had hard-to-fill vacancies 63.1% 57.5%
Difficulty: lack of applications 56.2% 43.2%
Difficulty: applicants lack relevant qualifications 50.8% 41.7%
Difficulty: applicants lack work experience 40.8% 40.9%
Difficulty: salary expectations too high 38.9% 41.9%

Difficulties as a share of businesses that recruited or tried to recruit ICT specialists. Source: Eurostat, 2024

How people use AI at work

  • 57% of Dutch adults have used an AI chatbot: 90.4% of 18 to 25-year-olds and 20.6% of people over 65 (CBS, 2026)
  • 24% of Dutch adults used AI for work in the past three months (CBS, 2026)
  • 44.7% of Dutch people aged 16-74 used generative AI tools in 2025, against 32.7% in the EU (Eurostat, 2025)
  • 5% of EU employment consists of ICT specialists (2025), half of the 2030 target of 10% (European Commission, 2026)

Leading universities and research institutes

  • TU Delft: AI for Society, MSc Computer Science (AI track), ELLIS Unit
  • University of Amsterdam: ELLIS Unit Amsterdam, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
  • TU Eindhoven: Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI), partnerships with Philips and ASML
  • Utrecht University: AI Master's, focus on responsible AI and human-centered computing
  • TNO: applied AI research, AI Validation Lab

Section 6 — Global

Europe vs US vs China

The US dominates AI investment, while the EU leads on regulation. Within the EU, the Nordic countries lead business AI adoption. The Netherlands ranks 6th in the EU: 33.2% of businesses with 10+ employees used AI in 2025, against an EU average of 19.95%.

Top 10 AI adoption in the EU (businesses with 10+ employees, 2025)

1 Denmark 42.0%
2 Finland 37.8%
3 Sweden 35.0%
4 Belgium 34.5%
5 Luxembourg 33.6%
6 Netherlands 33.2%
7 Austria 30.0%
8 Germany 26.0%
9 Estonia 23.4%
10 Slovenia 21.6%

Lowest in the EU: Romania (5.21%). Source: Eurostat, 2025

Global comparison

Indicator Netherlands EU US China
Businesses using AI (10+ employees, 2025) 33.2% 19.95% n/a n/a
People using generative AI (16-74, 2025) 44.7% 32.7% n/a n/a
ICT specialists, share of employment (2025) 7.2% 5.0% n/a n/a
Private AI investment (2025) n/a $20.9B (Europe) $285.9B $12.4B

n/a: no comparable figure from the same source. Eurostat does not cover the US or China; Stanford HAI does not report a separate Dutch investment figure. Sources: Eurostat, 2025, Eurostat, 2025, Eurostat, 2025, Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026

Section 7 — Ecosystem

AI innovation hubs

AI activity in the Netherlands clusters around a handful of university cities, each with its own specialization. The country has Europe's highest AI talent density, but scaling up is harder: according to Techleap, the Dutch conversion rate to scaleup status (21.2%) is only a quarter of the US rate (80.9%). Source: Techleap, 2026

Amsterdam

Amsterdam region

Home to tech companies such as Booking.com, Elsevier and TomTom, and to the ELLIS Unit Amsterdam (UvA and VU) for machine learning research.

Deep Learning NLP Computer Vision

Eindhoven

Brainport region

The Brainport region, home to ASML, Philips, NXP and DAF. TU/e's EAISI institute focuses on AI for hardware, semiconductors and manufacturing.

Edge AI Manufacturing Semiconductors

Delft

TU Delft and spin-offs

TU Delft works on robotics, autonomous systems and responsible AI. QuTech combines quantum computing research with AI. A spin-off ecosystem turns research into products.

Robotics Quantum AI Autonomous Systems

Groningen

Zernike Campus

The University of Groningen focuses on AI for the energy transition, agriculture and healthcare. Zernike Campus serves as the innovation cluster.

Energy AI AgriTech HealthTech

Section 8 — Forecast

Predictions 2027-2030

Adoption forecasts are uncertain, so this section only shows fixed regulatory dates, official EU targets and clearly labelled analyst predictions. Since 2 August 2026, the EU AI Act applies in general.

2027

>40%

of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 because of rising costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls (Gartner prediction). From 2 December 2027, the AI Act's high-risk rules for uses such as employment and education apply.

2028

33%

of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, up from less than 1% in 2024, and at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously (Gartner prediction). AI Act rules for AI in regulated products apply from 2 August 2028.

2030

75%

EU target: by 2030, 75% of EU companies should use cloud computing services, big data analysis or AI. In 2025, 20% of EU businesses used AI, up from 13% in 2024.

2030

20M

EU target: at least 20 million ICT specialists employed in the EU by 2030. In 2025, more than 10 million people worked as ICT specialists.

Sources: Gartner, 2025, European Commission, 2026, Eurostat, 2026

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of businesses use AI in 2026?

The latest official figures are for 2025. In the Netherlands, 33% of businesses with 10 or more employed persons used AI (2024: 23%), and 17% of all businesses with 2 or more employed persons (2023: 8%), according to CBS. Across the EU, 19.95% of businesses with 10+ employees used AI in 2025 (Eurostat). Use is highest in information and communication (54% of Dutch businesses with 2+ employed persons) and lowest in hospitality (6%).

How much are companies investing in AI in 2026?

Global private AI investment reached $344.7 billion in 2025, up 127.5%, according to the Stanford HAI AI Index 2026. The US accounted for $285.9 billion, Europe for $20.9 billion and China for $12.4 billion. In the Netherlands, the National Growth Fund reserved up to €276 million for the AiNed AI programme, and WBSO project applications involving AI are 77% higher than five years earlier (RVO).

Which industries have the highest AI adoption rates?

In the Netherlands, information and communication leads (54% of businesses with 2+ employed persons in 2025), followed by specialist business services (31%) and financial services (28%). Construction and transport (both 7%) and hospitality (6%) lag behind (CBS). Among businesses with 10+ employed persons, 70% of information and communication businesses use AI.

What are the biggest barriers to AI adoption for SMBs?

Among Dutch businesses that considered AI but do not use it, 73% cite a lack of experience, 49% privacy concerns and 42% unclear legal consequences; 15% say AI is not useful for them (CBS, 2025). About three quarters of businesses never considered AI at all. Across the EU, 70.89% of businesses that considered AI cite a lack of relevant expertise (Eurostat).

How does Europe compare to the US and China in AI adoption?

Eurostat does not measure business AI use in the US or China, so there is no like-for-like adoption comparison. Within the EU, Denmark (42.0%), Finland (37.8%) and Sweden (35.0%) lead; the Netherlands ranks 6th with 33.2%, against an EU average of 19.95%. On investment the US dominates: $285.9 billion in private AI investment in 2025, against $20.9 billion for Europe and $12.4 billion for China (Stanford HAI).

Methodology & Sources

About this data

All figures on this page come from sources we opened and checked on 9 November 2026, and each figure links to its source. Official statistics (CBS, Eurostat, European Commission) come first; studies by named organizations (Stanford HAI, Gartner, Techleap, RVO) are labelled as such. Mind the populations: CBS's 17% covers Dutch businesses with 2 or more employed persons, CBS's 33% and Eurostat's 33.21% cover businesses with 10 or more (Eurostat excludes the financial sector). Earlier versions of this page contained estimates and extrapolations without sources; those have been removed.

Key sources

  • CBS: Statistics Netherlands: AI use by businesses 2025, Digitalisation and knowledge economy 2025, AI in society 2026 (link)
  • Eurostat: AI use in enterprises, generative AI use by individuals, ICT specialists (link)
  • European Commission: AI Act timeline, State of the Digital Decade 2026 (link)
  • Stanford HAI: AI Index Report 2026 (link)
  • Gartner: agentic AI predictions, June 2025 (link)
  • Techleap: State of Dutch Tech 2026 (link)
  • RVO: WBSO annual report 2025 (link)
  • Universiteit Leiden: National Growth Fund decision on AiNed, 2021 (link)

This page is updated regularly with new data. Last updated: 9 November 2026. Found an error or have additional data? Get in touch.

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Ruud ten Have

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Ruud ten Have

Ruud is a digital marketer with 10+ years of experience in online advertising and AI implementation. At Searchlab, he combines strategic thinking with hands-on AI tooling to deliver measurable results for businesses.

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