Bridging the AI Adoption Gap in Romania: Why Strategy Comes First

Romania's position in the European AI landscape is defined by a widening gap: only 5.2% of Romanian enterprises with over 10 employees use AI technologies.

Romania did grow. It went from 1.5% in 2023 to 3.1% in 2024, and then to 5.2% in 2025. But the rest of the EU grew faster. The EU average jumped from 13.5% to 20.0% in a single year (+6.5 percentage points), while Romania's increase was a more modest +2.1 points. The country is not catching up but falling further behind.

This is not a question of awareness. Medium-sized enterprises in Romania understand that AI has become a competitive necessity. The problem lies in moving from awareness to action.

AI adoption in Romania is being held back by a lack of strategy, low digital readiness, and the absence of clear frameworks that help companies implement AI in measurable ways.

Without a roadmap, AI stays in the "nice to have" column, while competitors across Europe are turning it into a competitive advantage. A competitive advantage that delivers operational gains, cost reductions, and faster decision-making.

This is a big risk for medium-sized enterprises. These businesses have the scale and resources to invest in AI, but they almost always don't have the internal expertise, guidance, and execution support to make it happen.

Romania ranks last in the EU for AI adoption with its 5.2% share. This is the lowest in the EU, well below the EU average of 20.0% and far behind leaders like Denmark (42.0%), Finland (37.8%), and Sweden (35.0%).

The growth trend tells the real story. From 2024 to 2025, Romania's AI adoption rate rose by +2.1 percentage points. The EU average rose by +6.5 points in the same period. Denmark alone gained +14.5 points. Romania's growth is real, but it's not fast enough. While other countries are accelerating, Romania is falling further behind, not standing still.

The disparity becomes sharper when looking at company size. Across the EU, AI adoption rates are higher among larger companies: 55% of large enterprises use AI, compared to roughly 20% of medium-sized and 11% of small firms.

Romania follows the same pattern, but with lower figures across the board. The few Romanian businesses that have embraced AI tend to be large multinationals or ICT companies. Medium-sized enterprises, which are often the backbone of the economy, lag behind.

This is a "missing middle" problem. Medium-sized firms have the resources, but they're not the ones pushing AI adoption. They're stuck. And as a result, Romania isn't just lagging behind the EU average, but it's also falling behind its own potential.

If we zoom into specific sectors, it's the same story. AI is barely present in key parts of the economy. The information and communication technology (ICT) sector leads, followed by some banks and fintech startups, but for a lot of key industries, AI remains a distant concept. For instance:

• Manufacturing, which accounts for over 20% of Romania's GDP, has seen little beyond isolated pilot projects.
• Agriculture, where AI could drive huge improvements through things like precision farming, is still operating largely on traditional models.
• Healthcare has a few AI-driven initiatives in telemedicine and diagnostics, but these are limited in scale.

The digital foundation for AI is also weak. Only 11% of Romanian companies use cloud services, compared to the EU average of 34%. Big data analytics has just a 5% adoption, versus 14% across the EU. When you're not even using cloud or data analytics, it's hard to make a case for AI.

Skills shortages add another layer to the problem. Only 2.8% of Romanian employees work in ICT roles (half the EU average), and just 12% of companies provide any form of tech training to their staff (vs 22% in the EU). So even when there's interest in AI, there aren't enough people who know what to do with it.

The gap is not just technical. There is also a lack of trust. A lot of Romanian companies still see AI as a buzzword, something that sounds good on stage at a conference but feels risky or unnecessary in the day-to-day running of their business. Add to that the slow pace of policy execution, limited funding, and fragmented governance, and you have a situation where AI feels like a luxury most companies can't afford to think about.

On the policy side, the Romanian government adopted a National AI Strategy for 2024-2027 in July 2024, and the EU AI Act becomes applicable in August 2026. But Romania missed the August 2025 deadline to designate national competent authorities for enforcement, a sign that institutional readiness trails behind the paperwork.

Romania's AI gap is not the result of disinterest. It is a product of low digital maturity, uneven sectoral development, limited access to skills and infrastructure, and a persistent lack of strategic frameworks that make AI adoption viable for the majority of businesses.

For Romanian medium-sized enterprises, AI adoption is less about "why" and more about "how." The real barriers are practical. Medium-sized enterprises don't have dedicated R&D teams or the in-house AI expertise that large corporations rely on.

When they try to explore AI, they face a market where solutions are often not designed for their scale or needs. Many AI providers focus on selling to large enterprises, leaving the mid-market without accessible, tailored options.

Financing is another issue. Medium-sized enterprises typically operate with tighter margins than large companies. AI adoption involves upfront investments in software, infrastructure, and data preparation. These costs can be difficult to justify without a clear, immediate return. While EU funds and national programs exist, navigating the application processes and compliance requirements is complex and resource-intensive.

There's also a knowledge gap at the leadership level. Many decision-makers in medium-sized enterprises understand AI in broad terms but struggle to identify specific, practical applications for their business. Without concrete examples of AI driving measurable results in their sector, AI remains a theoretical concept, something that might help, but not something to act on today.

All of these issues lead to inertia. The risk of making a wrong investment feels higher than the risk of waiting. And so, while the conversation around AI grows louder, for most Romanian medium-sized enterprises, the next step is still unclear.

The companies that do move forward tend to start with one focused use case rather than a company-wide transformation, run a proper readiness assessment before committing resources, and define clear metrics to track ROI from day one. That's the pattern that works.