A July 2026 study tracking search activity, venture capital flows and enterprise adoption rates across Europe has found that smaller Central and Eastern European economies are outpacing their Western neighbours in the speed of AI uptake, with Croatia recording a tenfold increase in AI tool interest over three years.
Monthly searches for AI tools in Croatia have grown 10.6 times since 2023, according to research from Hamilton Group, an IT support provider. Slovakia sits second (10x growth, 31% daily AI usage), Romania third (8x), Hungary fourth (8x, 30% individual usage), and Czechia fifth (7x, 35% individual daily use).
The research does not suggest Central and Eastern Europe is outspending the West on AI infrastructure. Croatia attracted no AI venture capital in 2025; Slovakia drew $47 million. What the study captures is the speed at which people who were not yet familiar with AI tools have moved to daily or near-daily use.
The Western European picture is different in character. Finland reports that nearly 40% of companies have integrated AI tools into workplace operations — the highest enterprise adoption rate in Europe. Ireland has the highest individual daily use, with around one in two people using AI tools daily. The UK absorbed nearly half of all European AI venture capital last year, at $14.5 billion.
There is a security implication in that divergence. The countries where AI use is growing most rapidly are also those with the least AI investment infrastructure and, in some cases, the least developed enterprise security frameworks for managing it. Hamilton Group's analysis flags the gap between fast public adoption and slower institutional governance as the period when common mistakes accumulate: feeding sensitive information into public platforms, using personal accounts for work queries, and not reviewing privacy settings before adopting a new tool.
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