Data · Updated 2 November 2026

AI and automation statistics for businesses 2026: Spain and the EU

42 figures on how businesses use artificial intelligence, AI agents, process automation, cloud and e-invoicing. Every figure links to its original source, mostly official bodies (Spain's INE, Eurostat, Banco de España, the European Commission, the Spanish Tax Agency) plus reference studies (Gartner, McKinsey, Stanford, Microsoft). We checked each one on its source page.

21.1%

of Spanish companies with 10+ employees use AI (INE, Q1 2025).

19.95%

of EU enterprises used AI in 2025 (Eurostat).

>40%

of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 (Gartner).

37%

of organizations attribute some EBIT impact to AI (McKinsey, 2026).

Contents
  1. AI use in businesses
  2. AI agents
  3. Automation and software development
  4. Cloud and digitalization
  5. E-invoicing and regulation
  6. Productivity and jobs
  7. What the data means
  8. Methodology and sources

AI use in businesses

  1. 21.1% of Spanish companies with 10 or more employees use artificial intelligence (Q1 2025), up 8.7 points in a year. Source: INE, ICT use in enterprises survey 2024-Q1 2025 (22 Oct 2025).
  2. Among companies with fewer than 10 employees, AI use reaches 13.4%, up 5.9 points. Source: INE.
  3. By sector, 25.7% of services companies, 17.5% of industrial companies and 11.4% of construction companies in Spain use AI. Source: INE.
  4. 19.95% of EU enterprises with 10 or more employees used AI technologies in 2025, up 6.47 points on 2024. Source: Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises (2025 data).
  5. In the EU, 17% of small, 30.36% of medium-sized and 55.03% of large enterprises use AI. Source: Eurostat.
  6. According to Eurostat, 20.27% of Spanish enterprises with 10+ employees use AI (EU: 19.95%), and 57.46% of those with 250+ (EU: 55.03%). Source: Eurostat, table isoc_eb_ai (2025).
  7. Denmark leads AI use in the EU (42.03%), followed by Finland (37.82%) and Sweden (35.04%); the lowest shares are in Romania (5.21%), Poland (8.36%) and Bulgaria (8.55%). Source: Eurostat.
  8. Text mining is the most used AI technology in the EU, used by 11.75% of enterprises. Source: Eurostat.
  9. Of EU enterprises that considered AI but did not use it, 70.89% cite a lack of expertise and 52.52% doubts about the legal consequences. Source: Eurostat.
  10. AI use among Spanish SMEs has doubled since 2024, reaching 30% to 35% in early 2026 depending on the technology; among large companies it is around 70%. Source: Banco de España blog (28 Oct 2026, EBAE survey, in Spanish).
  11. 61% of large Spanish companies expect AI to raise their productivity, compared with 27% of SMEs. Source: Banco de España.
  12. About 89% of Spanish companies using AI see no significant effect on employment. Source: Banco de España.
  13. A shortage of skilled staff is the main barrier to adopting AI, cited by about half of the Spanish companies surveyed. Source: Banco de España.
  14. In Spain, 62.4% of enterprises use AI, cloud or data analytics (EU: 63.2%), still short of the EU's 75% target for 2030. Source: European Commission, State of the Digital Decade 2026, Spain report (17 Jun 2026).
  15. Nearly nine in ten organizations regularly use AI in at least one function, and 44% say it is scaling across the enterprise (38% a year earlier). Source: McKinsey, The state of AI in 2026 (25 Aug 2026).
  16. Only 37% of organizations attribute at least some EBIT impact to AI, unchanged from the year before. Source: McKinsey.
  17. Organizational AI adoption reached 88%. Source: Stanford HAI, AI Index Report 2026.
  18. Worldwide AI spending is forecast to reach $2.7 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% on 2025. Source: Gartner (16 Sep 2026).

AI agents

  1. Over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 because of escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls. Source: Gartner (25 Jun 2025).
  2. By 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI (0% in 2024). Source: Gartner.
  3. By 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI (under 1% in 2024). Source: Gartner.
  4. Gartner estimates that only about 130 of the thousands of vendors claiming to offer agentic AI are real. Source: Gartner.
  5. Up to 40% of enterprise applications will include integrated task-specific agents by 2026, up from under 5% in 2025. Source: Gartner (26 Aug 2025).
  6. By 2029, at least 50% of knowledge workers will have developed new skills to work with, govern or create AI agents. Source: Gartner.
  7. By 2029, agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues without human intervention. Source: Gartner (5 Mar 2025).
  8. 40% of large organizations (over $1 billion in revenue) report scaling AI agents, up from 27% the year before; among smaller ones the figure stays at 22%. Source: McKinsey.
  9. Active agents in Microsoft 365 grew 15-fold in a year (18-fold in large enterprises), according to Microsoft telemetry from March 2025 to March 2026. Source: Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2026 (5 May 2026).
  10. Worldwide spending on AI agents and assistants will grow from $16,481 million to $29,219 million between 2025 and 2026. Source: Gartner (16 Sep 2026).

Automation and software development

  1. Gartner raised its 2026 growth forecast for AI application development platforms from 28% to 39%. Source: Gartner.
  2. 32% of organizations have decided against buying at least one software product because they can build it in-house with agentic coding tools. Source: McKinsey.
  3. Nearly three in four AI high performers have fundamentally redesigned their workflows (55% a year earlier), compared with one in four of other companies. Source: McKinsey.

Cloud and digitalization

  1. 44.3% of Spanish companies with 10+ employees use paid cloud services, up 6.6 points on Q1 2024. Source: INE.
  2. 63.6% of Spanish companies use an ERP, 34.5% a CRM, and 41.4% run data analytics with their own staff (Q1 2025). Source: INE, table by region (national total).
  3. 52.74% of EU enterprises use paid cloud (2025), led by Finland (79.21%); in Spain the figure is 41.65%. Source: Eurostat, Cloud computing statistics.
  4. 75.4% of Spanish SMEs have at least a basic level of digital intensity (EU: 71.4%; 2030 target: 90%). Source: European Commission, State of the Digital Decade 2026.
  5. EU target for 2030: at least 75% of enterprises using cloud, big data or AI, and over 90% of SMEs with at least basic digital intensity. Source: Decision (EU) 2022/2481, Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030, art. 4.

E-invoicing and regulation

  1. In Spain, businesses with turnover above €8 million must use B2B e-invoicing from 6 October 2027, and all other businesses and professionals from 6 October 2028. Source: Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT), Order HAC/1028/2026 (updated 27 Oct 2026, in Spanish).
  2. 39.97% of Spanish enterprises send e-invoices suitable for automated processing (EU: 38.68%; latest data, 2023). Source: Eurostat, table isoc_eb_ics.

Productivity and jobs

  1. 80% of respondents say AI has improved their individual productivity, and 50% that it helps them make better decisions. Source: McKinsey.
  2. 39% expect AI to reduce their organization's total headcount next year (32% the year before), but only 14% report actual reductions. Source: McKinsey.
  3. 66% of AI users say it lets them spend more time on high-value work (survey of 20,000 people in 10 markets). Source: Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2026.
  4. The average worker receives 117 emails a day and skims most of them in under 60 seconds. Source: Microsoft WorkLab, "Breaking down the infinite workday" (17 Jun 2025).

What the data means

Adoption is no longer the problem; returns are. One in five Spanish companies uses AI and the share grows by double digits every year, yet only 37% of organizations see an EBIT impact and Gartner expects over 40% of agent projects to be canceled. What sets apart those who get results is redesigning the work itself: nearly three in four AI high performers have redesigned their workflows.

AI pays off inside a process, not on its own. An agent acting without rules, an owner or an audit trail is exactly the kind of project that gets canceled for "inadequate risk controls". That is why in Dokuflex every AI action is a step in a BPMN process, with confidence thresholds, human validation and evidence. We explain it in BPM with AI agents.

Regulation is pushing digitalization. B2B e-invoicing becomes mandatory in Spain between 2027 and 2028, and only four in ten companies currently send invoices suitable for automated processing. It is a good time to automate the invoice cycle, as we cover in invoice digitization.

Methodology and sources

We checked every figure on the original page or document of its source in November 2026. We leave out figures that only appear in secondary sources (blogs or third-party write-ups) and data older than 2025 when a newer edition exists.

Why some figures differ: AI use in Spain is 21.1% according to INE, 20.27% according to Eurostat and 20.3% in the Digital Decade report; paid cloud use is 44.3% (INE) and 41.65% (Eurostat). Each body uses a different sample, period and definition. If you quote a figure, quote its source too.

Spotted an outdated figure or a newer source? Email hola@dokuflex.com and we will update the page.

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