The National Observatory of Technology and Society (ONTSI) has recently published a new edition of its study «Use of artificial intelligence and big data in Spanish companies».
The report of the advisory body of the entity Red.es provides important data on how Spain is advancing in its objective of integrating the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in its productive fabric. 11.8% of companies with more than ten people has embraced the use of AI, four points more than last year. Regarding the use of Big Data, increases by three points, 13.9% of companies in Spain use massive data analysis. The two areas analyzed also rose in microenterprises and reached 4.6% and 3.7% respectively.
Artificial Intelligence has great potential to transform the economy and society, allowing better predictions, streamline operations and customize services. The publication also includes a breakdown by company size that makes it possible to compare the adoption of these technologies in different segments: large companies, SMEs, and micro-enterprises. It can be seen that the use of artificial intelligence has grown in all of them, but especially in large ones, where four out of ten of more than 249 workers use this technology.
In companies that use Artificial Intelligence, 46.2% use it to automate workflows and help in decision-making, while 39.7% apply it to identify people or objects based on images. In the case of micro-enterprises, 48% find it most useful to convert spoken language into a readable format.
The Community of Madrid, in the lead
The regions with the highest implementation of AI in Spanish companies are: Community of Madrid (16.8%)Valencian Community (14.1%), Aragon (12.7%) and Catalonia (12.3%).
As for Big Data, the adoption of which is key to the digitization of the Spanish economy, the source most used by Spanish companies is the geolocation from portable devices (55.3% of the companies that used Big Data).
As with AI, large companies adopt Big Data to a greater extent, 34.7%.
Regarding the territories with the greatest implementation of Big data, 17% of Madrid companies are already using it. Also 16.1% of the companies in Catalonia and La Rioja.
By sectors of activity, it is information and communications (41.9%) and ICT (41.3%) that bring together a large part of the companies that use AI. It is also in these sectors where more companies with more than ten employees use data intelligence (35.2% in technology and 34.7% in information and communications), followed by transportation (24.6%) and energy and water (22.1%).
The new ONTSI publication also uses data from 2021 to make a comparison with the European environment. According to these indicators, Spain occupies the fourteenth European position in the integration of AI, and the seventeenth position among European companies that analyze big data.
Another notable aspect is the increase in the hiring of specialists in AI and Big Data, although it grows up to 2.3% compared to the previous year, the number of companies that have hired people specialized in Artificial Intelligence has increased, it is not comparable to the number of companies that use it according to the data obtained. This indicates that the use of artificial intelligence by companies is not always channeled through professionals in the field. Larger companies are those that demand a greater number of these professionals.
