The National Observatory of Technology and Society (ONTSI), a collegiate advisory body of the entity Red.es, attached to the Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation through the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, has published a new report use of artificial intelligence and big data in Spanish companies.
This publication provides important data on how Spain is advancing in its goal of integrating artificial intelligence and big data into its production fabric. 11.8% of companies with more than ten people have adopted the use of AI, four points higher than last year. In terms of big data usage, it increases by three points, with 13.9% of companies in Spain using big data analytics. The two areas analyzed in microenterprises also increased and added up to 4.6% and 3.7%, respectively.
Artificial intelligence has great potential to transform the economy and society, making it possible to improve forecasts, streamline processes and customize services. The publication also includes a division by company size that allows comparing the adoption of these technologies in different sectors: large companies, small and medium-sized companies and micro companies. It can be seen that the use of artificial intelligence has grown in all of them, but mainly in the large ones, where four out of ten of the more than 249 workers use this technology.
In companies that use AI, 46.2% use it to automate workflows and assist in decision making, while 39.7% use it to identify people or objects based on images. For small organizations, 48% find it most useful to convert spoken language into a readable format.
The autonomous communities with the greatest application 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, whose adoption is fundamental for the digitalization of the Spanish economy, the source most used by Spanish companies is geolocation from mobile devices (55.3% of companies using big data).
As with AI, large enterprises are embracing big data to an even greater extent, 34.7%.
As for the regions with the greatest application of big data, 17% of companies in Madrid already use it. Also 16.1% of the companies are in Catalonia and La Rioja.
By sectors of activity, it is information and communication (41.9%) and ICT (41.3%) that bring together a significant part of companies that use artificial intelligence. It is also in these sectors that more companies with more than ten employees use data intelligence (35.2% in technology and 34.7% in information and communication), followed by transport (24.6%) and energy and water (22. 1%).
The new ONTSI publication also uses 2021 data to make a comparison with the European environment. According to these indicators, Spain ranks 14th in Europe in artificial intelligence integration and 17th among European companies analyzing big data.
