Social Monitor: Romania ranks last in EU for artificial intelligence use

Romania ranks last in the European Union for the use of artificial intelligence by both individuals and companies, according to an analysis by the Social Monitor (Monitorul Social), a project of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Romania. The report linked the low adoption rate to a wider deficit in basic digital skills.

Only 17.8% of Romanians aged 16 to 74 used generative AI tools in 2025, compared with an EU average of 32.7%. Denmark led the bloc with a rate of 48.4%, according to Eurostat data cited in the report.

The difference was greater in the workplace. Just 5.2% of Romanians used generative AI for professional purposes, compared with 15.4% across the EU.

A similar share of Romanian companies with at least ten employees - 5.2% - used some form of AI technology. The EU average was 20%, meaning Romanian businesses currently use AI less than European companies did in 2021, when the bloc-wide rate stood at 7.7%, the same source revealed.

The Social Monitor linked this performance to Romania’s low level of digital literacy. Only 31.8% of the population had basic or above-basic digital skills in 2025, the lowest share in the EU and well below the European average of 60.4%.

The report argued that Romania’s economic development alone could not explain the gap. Bulgaria, Greece, Latvia, Slovakia, and Hungary have lower GDP per capita in purchasing-power terms but perform better in both digital skills and AI adoption.

Greece, for example, has a GDP per capita equivalent to 68% of the EU average, compared with Romania’s 78%, yet 44.1% of Greeks used generative AI.

Plus, Internet access does not fully account for the difference either. Among people who had used the internet during the previous three months, only 19.1% in Romania had used generative AI, compared with 34.8% across the EU.

“More concerning is the fact that Romania is not catching up. Between 2021 and 2025, the share of Romanians with basic digital skills increased from 27.8% to 31.8%, more slowly than the EU27 average, which rose from 53.9% to 60.4%, meaning the gap widened. At this pace, Romania would reach the European target of 80% of the population having basic digital skills only in approximately 48 years, rather than in 2030,” reads the report.

The gap between Romanian companies and the EU average in AI adoption also more than doubled between 2021 and 2025, from 6.3 to 14.7 percentage points.

Young Romanians also ranked last in the EU. Some 44.1% of those aged 16 to 24 used generative AI, compared with a European average of 63.8%, while the rate among Romanian students was 53.5%, against 72% across the bloc.