{"id":681791,"date":"2026-01-08T08:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/681791\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T08:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:22:09","slug":"germanys-mittelstand-slows-ai-investment-in-2025-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/681791\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Mittelstand slows AI investment in 2025 study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> Germany\u2019s small and medium-sized companies, known as the Mittelstand, reduced their investment in artificial intelligence in 2025, according to a new study, even as overall corporate AI spending continued to rise. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A survey of 200 Mittelstand firms by management consultancy Horvath found that AI spending fell to 0.35% of revenues in 2025, down from 0.41% in 2024. In contrast, the average AI investment across all companies increased to 0.5% of revenues, leaving the Mittelstand about 30% below the market average, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News.Az<\/a> reports, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Horvath said geopolitical tensions, bureaucratic hurdles, and slow digitalisation have caused mid-sized companies to focus on cost-cutting rather than innovation. Concerns over <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/news\/gold-slips-as-firm-dollar-jobs-data-keep-investors-cautious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">data<\/a> protection and digital sovereignty are also slowing AI adoption.<\/p>\n<p>Study lead Heiko Fink warned that without accelerated AI transformation, the technology gap could become a serious strategic risk for these companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s small and medium-sized companies, known as the Mittelstand, reduced their investment in artificial intelligence in 2025, according&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[96885,2000,299,1824,206684,123053],"class_list":{"0":"post-681791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-ai-investment","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-horvath","13":"tag-mittelstand"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115858515059945517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}