AI and Italy: The Last Chance to Escape the Low-Productivity Trap?
The Contrarian View
There is a widely accepted narrative about artificial intelligence: AI will destroy jobs, increase inequality and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of large technology companies.
That may be part of the story.
But for Italy, the more important economic question may be very different:
What if the real risk is not adopting AI fast enough?
Italy is not starting from a particularly strong position.
The country’s problem is not simply public debt. It is a combination of weak growth, low productivity, demographic ageing and a shortage of skilled workers.
The IMF identifies weak productivity growth as one of the key structural constraints on the Italian economy. The adoption of new technologies, including AI, could become an important source of future productivity growth.
Is Italy adopting AI fast enough?
In 2025, around 16.4% of Italian businesses were using at least one AI technology.
The number is increasing, but it remains below the EU average of around 20%.
The gap becomes even more significant compared with Europe’s leading adopters.
This does not mean that Italy lacks technological excellence.
Italy has world-class industrial companies, manufacturing expertise, universities, technology clusters and highly competitive businesses.
The problem is something more fundamental:
the speed at which technology is converted into productivity.
Italy’s economy is dominated by small and medium-sized businesses.
That makes AI adoption particularly important — and particularly difficult.
AI could be a game changer for Italian SMEs
A large corporation can afford data scientists, cloud infrastructure, consultants and customized AI systems.
A small company usually cannot.