58% of enormous Spanish firms already use synthetic intelligence | Economy | EUROtoday

Artificial intelligence (AI) advances yr after yr in Spanish firms and with growing energy. “2025 has been a year of strong takeoff for business AI,” signifies UGT within the seventh version of its research Digitization of the Spanish firmwhich devotes numerous consideration to the growth of AI. Based on information from the National Statistics Institute (INE), the union highlights that 21.1% of firms with greater than 10 employees used AI in 2025, 9 factors greater than a yr earlier than. It additionally signifies that this use is much more established within the largest firms, with 58.2% and a year-on-year enhance of 13 factors. These tendencies enhance the Spanish place within the rating on using AI from the OECD.

“Artificial intelligence is, today, the most influential technology in labor and business terms, both due to its own capabilities and because it is the pinnacle of any company’s technological inventory,” displays UGT within the report, ready by José Varela, the union’s head of digitalization. It stands out that the implementation of AI in firms has multiplied by 2.5 because the first data on this regard from the INE, in 2021.

The breakdown by firm dimension exhibits that using AI is advancing in any respect ranges, however that its implementation varies relying on the scale of the workforce. In normal, bigger firms have larger capability to assimilate new technological developments and spend money on their implementation.

The largest firms, these with greater than 250 employees, are those that use AI probably the most, 58.2% of them. It is a vital advance in comparison with the primary information out there, 2021, when it was round 36.8%. The most important leap has occurred within the final yr, through which this variable has superior 13 factors, in comparison with the 12 it gained from 2021 to 2024.

The similar dynamic is repeated in the remainder of the businesses: amongst those who make use of lower than 10 employees, the evolution was from 3.5% in 2021 to 7.5% in 2024 and as much as 13.4% in 2025. In firms with 10 to 49 workers it went from 5% in 2021 to 9.5% in 2024 and 17.9% in 2025; and in these with 50 to 250 employees, from 14% in 2021 to 21.2% in 2024 and 30.8% in 2025. All these information correspond to the primary quarter of every yr.

These will increase, in response to the UGT report, place Spain in a extra superior place than in earlier years. “This notable progress in the adoption of AI places Spain slightly above the OECD and EU average with 20.3%,” signifies UGT, which additionally alludes to the overtaking of “traditionally more technological economies” reminiscent of Ireland (19.6%) or “countries with great digital progress in recent years,” reminiscent of Portugal (11.5%).

“However, we are still far from the Scandinavian and Central European economies,” provides UGT. The OECD international locations with the best implementation of AI of their firms are Denmark (42%), Finland (38%) and Sweden (35%). The lowest is in Bulgaria (9%), Poland (8%) and Türkiye (7%).

Among the particular instruments, UGT signifies that “AIs such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini rise to the top positions, both in terms of multimedia content generation and text processing.” On the opposite, provides UGT, the use for the automation of workflows drops six factors, from 39% in 2024 to 33% in 2025. “It could give the impression that this decline will alleviate the growing pressure on employment, but the collective layoffs presented recently seem to point in the opposite direction,” provides the creator of the report. He provides for example the layoffs introduced in current months at Amazon, Allianz or Telefónica.

UGT additionally pays consideration to the the reason why 79% of firms nonetheless don’t use AI. The most important purpose is the “lack of knowledge”, talked about by 81% of firms that don’t use AI. 53.6% confer with issues associated to privateness and information safety, 52.9% to attainable authorized penalties and 48.3% to financial prices.

Greater digitization

Beyond AI, UGT observes an enchancment within the digitalization of Spanish firms within the final yr. “The year 2025 is not only the year of the explosion in the adoption of AI; it is also the year of the rest of the most advanced technologies, possibly in the heat of that,” says UGT. “Both the magnitude of progress and its technological variety have boosted the level of digital intensity of the Spanish business fabric like never before,” the union provides.

The report highlights that within the final yr the presence of poorly digitized corporations decreased and the share of firms with larger technological energy doubled. “Thanks to all this, 12% of Spanish companies already demonstrate the highest level of digitalization and one in three shows a high or very high technological degree.” At the identical time, “the comparison with the EU clearly changes direction”, since “in the lowest range (companies with very low digital intensity), there is 4% less than the European average” and “in companies with high or very high intensity, Spain is five points above the rest of Europe.”

UGT relates this advance to the progress of the Digital Kit program, a public funding plan to digitalize the Spanish economic system. “The 1,356 million euros invested in digitizing companies and public administrations have contributed, in a specific and crucial way, to the progress described,” provides UGT.

Labor setback

The reverse of this information is labor. UGT considers that these tendencies are usually not being transferred to employment: “There is no doubt that progress in the adoption of new digital technologies is not reflected in labor use and use. Investment, innovation and business strategies are focusing on the acquisition of infrastructure, software and services, disdaining the capital role of people.”

UGT specifies why it reaches this conclusion: “Medium-sized firms haven’t modified the presence of ICT consultants one millimeter in a whole yr. In small firms, the rise is barely 1%. But probably the most notable factor is that, amongst massive firms, the share of firms with new expertise professionals has decreased by virtually 2.5%.”

The union says that it’s “complicated” to anticipate the circumstances that specify this setback, however signifies that “without a doubt” it’s “unexpected and disturbing behavior.” In one other current report, the union highlighted that technological employment is slowing down in Spain after a number of years of progress.