site.btaBulgaria Records Second Lowest Share of Enterprises Using AI in EU in 2023

In 2023, Bulgaria recorded the second lowest share (3.6%) of enterprises with 10 or more employees that used Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to conduct their business, show Eurostat data published on Wednesday. Only Romania recorded a lower share - 1.5%.

On average, 8% of the enterprises in the EU used AI technologies. The highest shares of enterprises with 10 or more employees using AI technologies were in Denmark (15.2%), Finland (15.1%) and Luxembourg (14.4%).

Artificial intelligence refers to systems that use technologies such as text mining, computer vision, speech recognition, natural language generation, machine learning and deep learning to gather and/or use data to predict, recommend or decide – with varying levels of autonomy – the best action to achieve specific goals.

When it comes to the type of AI technology used by these enterprises, in 2023, automating different workflows or assisting in decision-making (AI-based software robotic process automation) was the most used, with 3% of the enterprises using it. Performing analysis of written language (text mining; 2.9%) and machine learning (e.g. deep learning; 2.6%) followed. 

Other types of AI technologies used include converting spoken language into machine-readable format (speech recognition; 2.5% of the enterprises), identifying objects or persons based on images (image recognition, image processing; 2.2%), generating written or spoken language (natural language generation; 2.1%) and enabling physical movement of machines via autonomous decisions based on observation of surroundings (autonomous robots, self-driving vehicles and autonomous drones; 0.9%).