Overview

• Bitkom’s new survey finds 36% of German companies now use AI, nearly doubling from 20% a year earlier.
• Another 47% are planning or discussing deployment, only 17% say AI is not a topic, and 51% believe firms without AI have no future, with 81% calling it the most important future technology.
• Use is concentrated in customer contact and marketing, with far less in R&D, production, controlling and accounting, and only 12% of AI users have integrated it into their products or services.
• Top hurdles include legal uncertainty, limited technical know-how and staffing, stringent data-protection demands, fears over data leakage, and concerns about explainability and result quality; most expect little net jobs impact, though some foresee reductions.
• Goldman Sachs estimates AI has lifted U.S. real activity by about $160 billion since 2022 but only around $45 billion shows up in GDP, citing BEA treatment of high-performance chips as intermediate inputs and undercapitalized cloud-based model development, with pre-tariff import surges further muddying investment data.