Area 1 · free to readFirst edition in January 2027
AI Adoption Index DACH
Which AI tools are actually running in companies in the German-speaking market. The pilot survey below reads publicly visible signals; from the first edition, the index adds anonymised spend data — what companies pay for, not what they tick in a survey. Free, quarterly, and never open to vendors buying their way in.
Pilot survey: world market leaders in DACH
A pilot ahead of the first edition. It measures publicly visible signals only; the anonymised spend data that the index is built on follows from January 2027.
Survey 27.–28.09.2026 · 517 companies
Sample: Weltmarktführer-Index 2025 (WirtschaftsWoche / HBM Unternehmerschule, University of St. Gallen), companies from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Overview
- Companies examined
- 517
- With at least one publicly visible AI signal
- 39.1%202 of 517 Companies
- With at least one identifiable AI tool
- 30.9%160 of 517 Companies
- With the company domain verified at an AI vendor
- 25.3%131 of 517 Companies
- Job ads that mention or require AI
- 3.3%159 of 4,749 job pages
AI tools in use (all sources)
Base: all 517 companies. A company can use several tools.
| Tool | Companies | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic / Claude | 79 | 15.3% |
| OpenAI / ChatGPT | 55 | 10.6% |
| Langdock | 11 | 2.1% |
| DeepL | 9 | 1.7% |
| Cursor | 9 | 1.7% |
| GitHub Copilot | 8 | 1.5% |
| Perplexity | 7 | 1.4% |
| Userlike | 7 | 1.4% |
| Microsoft Copilot | 6 | 1.2% |
| Lovable | 5 | 1.0% |
| Zendesk (AI Agents) | 4 | 0.8% |
| ElevenLabs | 3 | 0.6% |
| Onlim | 2 | 0.4% |
| Mistral AI | 2 | 0.4% |
| Chatbase | 2 | 0.4% |
| Salesforce Embedded Service/Agentforce | 2 | 0.4% |
| Windsurf | 1 | 0.2% |
| Tidio (Lyro) | 1 | 0.2% |
| LivePerson | 1 | 0.2% |
| Moin.ai | 1 | 0.2% |
| Gamma | 1 | 0.2% |
- A tool counts once per company, even if it appears in several sources: verified domains, job ads and website widgets.
- Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini are only visible through job ads and are therefore likely underestimated.
- “OpenAI / ChatGPT” also includes websites that call the OpenAI API directly for a chat of their own.
By company size
Share of companies in each group.
| Employees | Companies | With AI signal | With identifiable tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| under 250 * | 8 | 25.0% | 12.5% |
| 250–999 | 125 | 28.8% | 22.4% |
| 1,000–4,999 | 216 | 39.8% | 30.1% |
| 5,000–19,999 | 110 | 45.5% | 37.3% |
| 20,000+ | 58 | 48.3% | 43.1% |
- * Fewer than 30 companies in this group.
By industry cluster
Share of companies in each group.
| Industry cluster | Companies | With AI signal | With identifiable tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machinery & plant engineering | 175 | 35.4% | 24.6% |
| Electrical, energy & measurement | 100 | 48.0% | 40.0% |
| Chemicals, plastics & materials | 67 | 34.3% | 29.9% |
| Medical, pharma & life science | 42 | 42.9% | 31.0% |
| Automotive & mobility | 35 | 34.3% | 31.4% |
| Consumer goods & food | 33 | 30.3% | 30.3% |
| Software, finance & services * | 23 | 65.2% | 56.5% |
| Construction & building services * | 20 | 35.0% | 25.0% |
| Metal & components * | 19 | 36.8% | 26.3% |
- Industry clusters are derived heuristically from the market segment in the source list, not from an official industry classification.
- * Fewer than 30 companies in this group.
- Groups with fewer than 5 companies are not shown.
What the index will add
- 01
Adoption per tool
Share of companies paying for a tool, broken down by industry and company size.
- 02
Risers and fallers
What gained ground this quarter, what lost it, and which tools appear for the first time.
- 03
Staying power
How much of what was bought a year ago is still in use today — the number vendors never publish.
- 04
DACH, not a US average
Companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, so the comparison matches your market.
How the index will measure
From the first edition, participating companies release anonymised spend data on AI vendors. We normalise vendor names, calculate by company size and publish aggregates only. No single company is identifiable, no figure comes from self-assessment, and no vendor can pay to appear.
Every breakdown needs a minimum number of companies before it is published, so nothing can be traced back. The exact threshold is published with the first edition.
Contribute data
Data partners see the full index before it is published, including where they stand themselves. What we need is a monthly export of AI-related spend — anonymised, without customer data, and cancellable at any time.
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