Greek businesses fall behind in artificial intelligence (AI) integration among European Union member states, Eurostat reveals.
According to the EU’s statistical office, only 9.81 percent of Greece’s corporations used AI technologies in 2024, ranking 18th among the bloc’s 27 member states. Businesses in Sweden and Denmark were the top performers, with 27.6 percent and 25.1 percent respectively adopting AI tools, while Romania ranked last within European Union countries. In total, 13.5 percent of all enterprises in the EU with 10 or more employees used AI to conduct business.
The report found that all EU countries recorded increases in the share of enterprises using AI technologies compared with 2023. Sweden and Denmark recorded the highest increase (14.7 and 12.4 percent). Greece saw a growth of 5.83 percent, nearly tripling its percentage within a year.
Enterprises, including those in Greece, continued to embrace various AI technologies in order to advance their operations.
Text mining (analysis of written language) was the most widely adopted AI tool, with a 6.9 percent of businesses using it. Natural Language Generation (NLG), used for generating written or spoken content ranked second (5.4 percent), while speech recognition, which enables the conversion of spoken language into machine-readable formats, ranked third (4.8 percent).
Greece ranks second in number of AI startups in Eastern Europe
Despite the poor performance of Greek businesses integrating AI technologies into their operations, according to another report, Greek AI startups are thriving.
The annual State of AI Report 2024 published by The Recursive, ranks Greece second after Poland in terms of the number of AI startups operating in the country. According to the report, Greece currently hosts 188 AI startups, representing 17.5 percent of all AI startups in central and eastern Europe. Poland comes first with a share of 23.3 percent. Greece is followed by Romania (13.6 percent), Czechia (12.4 percent) and Bulgaria (8.4 percent).
The report notes that despite a decrease in investments during 2024 (123 million euros/$127 million from 146 million euros/$151 million), the Greek AI ecosystem remains strong and resilient.
Artificial Intelligence, along with biotechnology and health technologies were the top-funded sectors for Greek startups in 2024.
Found.ation, a Greek innovation management consulting firm, recently released its eight, consecutive annual “Startups in Greece” report in collaboration with EIT Digital, which reveals that over 555 million euros ($570 million) was invested in more than 90 Greek startups in 2024. This signifies a 15 percent increase compared to 2023, in stark contrast with European markets, which saw a five percent decline.
According to the report, foreign funds continued to invest heavily in Greek startups in 2024, with 156 international investors participating in the 2024 funding rounds. Of those, 36 percent are based in the United States.
In terms of high-value startups, Viva Wallet retained its unicorn status (unicorn companies reach a valuation of $1 billion without being listed on the stock market), while the top funded companies are valued between 4.9 and 6.5 billion euros ($5 to $6.68 billion), representing nearly 60 percent of the ecosystem’s total value.
