In eastern Germany, significantly fewer companies use artificial intelligence than on a national scale. According to an analysis by the Ifo Institute in Dresden, more than half of German companies now actively use AI, whereas in the east, the figure is just under two-fifths. The report noted that the East German economy is thus at the same level West Germany was at one year ago. No reasons for this trend were given.
Structural Lag in the East Regarding the Adoption of New Technologies
“This lag is evident across all economic sectors and in all eastern German states, and shows that companies are not yet sufficiently capitalizing on the associated opportunities for productivity gains,” comments Joachim Ragnitz, co-author of a study on this topic. Eastern Germany’s structural lag in the adoption of new technologies is thus also evident in the field of AI. Whether this gap narrows in the future depends primarily on small and medium-sized enterprises.
For its survey, the Ifo Institute examined the economy as a whole as well as five individual sectors: manufacturing, services, wholesale, retail, and the construction industry. Overall, AI usage in the German economy as a whole rose sharply between 2023 and 2026—in both the east and the west. In Germany, the share of companies using AI rose from 15.5 percent to 55.9 percent during this period, and in the east from 5.8 percent to 38.7 percent.
