The EU’s next chapter in AI is agentic
Quick Answer
The EU is experiencing a significant shift towards agentic AI tools like Codex and ChatGPT Work, with small and medium businesses seeing an eightfold increase in usage since May 2026.
Quick Take
However, there remains a notable disparity in AI adoption intensity across member states, and EU frontier firms still lag behind their global counterparts in output token generation.
Key Points
- Agentic AI use among EU small and medium businesses grew over eightfold since May 2026.
- Codex and ChatGPT Work account for over half of output tokens among ChatGPT Enterprise customers.
- EU frontier firms generate four times more output tokens per active user than typical EU firms.
- Output token generation varies significantly across EU countries, from 22% in Slovenia to 85% in Lithuania.
- Only 10% of global frontier firms are based in the EU, indicating a competitive gap.
DeepSignal Analysis
What happened
The EU is witnessing a significant increase in the use of agentic AI tools, particularly among small and medium businesses, which have seen an eightfold rise in usage since May 2026. However, there are notable disparities in AI adoption across member states, with output token generation varying significantly. EU frontier firms, while using AI more intensively than typical firms, still lag behind their global counterparts in terms of output.
Key evidence
- Since May 2026, weekly active users of Codex and ChatGPT Work among EU small and medium businesses have increased more than eightfold.
- In Slovenia, the share of output tokens generated through Codex and ChatGPT Work is 22%, while in Lithuania it is 85%, indicating significant variation in usage intensity across member states.
- In September, EU frontier firms generated over four times as many output tokens per active user compared to typical EU firms, but still less than frontier firms outside the EU, which generated more than twice as many.
Why it matters
The growth of agentic AI tools presents an opportunity for EU businesses to enhance productivity and competitiveness. However, the disparities in adoption and output highlight a need for targeted support to help businesses fully leverage these technologies. Addressing these gaps could lead to stronger economic performance and improved worker outcomes across the region.
📖 Reader Mode
~3 min readAcross the EU, businesses are expanding how they use AI through agentic tools. People are moving beyond asking questions to using agents to carry out tasks from planning through completion. Our latest report from OpenAI Economic Research examines how agentic use is growing across enterprises and small businesses, focusing on differences in usage intensity and the kinds of work people do with ChatGPT.
We have found that, among ChatGPT Enterprise customers, agentic use already represents a substantial share of activity. In our EU sample, Codex and ChatGPT Work now account for more than half of output tokens.
This analysis defines small or medium businesses as businesses with 200 or fewer associated users.
The agentic shift extends to small and medium businesses. Since May 2026, weekly active users of Codex and ChatGPT Work among EU small and medium businesses grew more than eightfold, with growth across every member state.
But we also found that the EU’s adoption of agentic AI is far from uniform. Among the ChatGPT Enterprise accounts in our sample, the share of output tokens generated through Codex and ChatGPT Work ranged from 22% in Slovenia to 85% in Lithuania. The differences across countries extends beyond the intensity of agentic use. The kinds of work people bring to ChatGPT also vary across countries.
Frontier firms are defined as the top 10% of firms by output tokens per active user. Sample includes only ChatGPT Enterprise and Business accounts.
The takeaway is that EU frontier firms use AI much more intensively than typical EU firms, but still trail firms at the global frontier. In September, frontier firms in the EU generated more than four times as many output tokens per active user as typical EU firms. Even so, frontier firms outside the EU generated more than twice as many output tokens per active user as frontier EU firms. EU-based firms also represented only 10% of the frontier firms globally, which is low considering that the EU accounts for a higher share of registered companies globally(opens in a new window).
These figures reveal a substantial gap in how intensively businesses use AI. As agentic capabilities advance, the EU’s opportunity is to turn broader adoption into deeper use, stronger businesses, higher productivity and meaningful benefits for workers. Closing that gap means helping businesses move beyond experimentation, giving workers the skills and confidence to use AI, and making advanced capabilities more accessible and affordable.
“Europe is now in a new era of AI, with tools that can carry out tasks for people. More than half of the AI use among our EU enterprise and business customers now involves these tools, and the number of small business users has grown 8x across the region. Yet there is still plenty of room for AI use to grow across the EU. Giving people the tools, skills and confidence to use AI well will help build stronger businesses and growing economies, with benefits felt across Europe.”
Sarah Friar, Chief Financial Officer, OpenAI
— Originally published at openai.com
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