Italian businesses believe businesses that fail to adopt AI risk falling behind competitors, want practical support to use AI
Washington, D.C., October 28, 2026 – A new Ipsos survey conducted on behalf of Meta finds that a majority of Italian businesses say that businesses that fail to adopt artificial intelligence risk falling behind competitors. But while many small businesses expect their AI use to increase over the next year, seven in ten feel AI is being introduced faster than small businesses can adapt to it (69%) and say small businesses need greater support or financial incentives to fully benefit from AI (73%).
The poll, conducted among 500 business owners or employees of micro (1-9 employees), small (10-49 employees), and medium (50-249 employees) businesses in Italy, also finds that a large share of these Italian businesses are currently in the experimentation stage when it comes to AI, with major barriers to uptake including verification of the accuracy of the work that AI produces and the loss of a personal connection to customers.
Additionally, while many businesses continue to rely on manual processes, many say they would delegate some tasks to AI, if it could reliably handle it.
Detailed findings
1. AI adoption remains in the early stages, with many business tasks still being done manually.
- Only 25% of businesses surveyed currently use AI tools as part of how they operate. Many businesses are still experimenting with or trialing AI tools (42%).
- Micro-businesses (1-9 employees) are less likely to have used AI at any point than small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) of 10-249 employees (68% vs. 86%). Note: low sample size of SMBs (N=89).
- SMBs are also more likely to be actively experimenting with AI (61%) compared to micro-businesses (41%).
- Even with AI tools available, many businesses continue to rely on manual processes. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of businesses handle customer messages manually.
- Accuracy is a concern when it comes to AI adoption in the workplace. More than three in five (63%) express worry about the accuracy of what AI tools produce for their company.
2. Finding new customers and investing time to grow are among businesses’ biggest challenges. Many would delegate these tasks to AI, if AI could reliably handle it.
- Finding new customers is the top business challenge, cited by 45%. This is followed by dealing with increasing costs (30%), investing time to grow (23%), and keeping up with technology (23%).
- Nearly half of businesses (47%) would delegate the task of finding new customers to an AI tool, if it could reliably handle the task from start to finish. About one in four would do the same for administrative paperwork (27%) and investing time to grow (24%).
3. Businesses believe AI will be important for the future, want practical support to use AI
- Six in ten (63%) believe that businesses that do not adopt AI tools risk being left behind by competitors.
- When asked to think about their expected AI use over the next year, three in five businesses (59%) expect to increase their use of AI for marketing and content creation, while nearly half expect to increase their AI use for product or service development (48%), customer communications (47%), and customer acquisition (45%).
- But at the same time, seven in ten (69%) feel AI is being pushed at small businesses faster than small businesses can adapt to it. In addition, nearly three-quarters (73%) believe that small businesses need greater support or financial incentives to fully benefit from AI.
- Among businesses that have used AI but use agentic AI assistants less than once a month or do not use them at all, 45% say training tailored to their industry would help them make greater use of AI. Price comes into play for others, with more than one-third (36%) indicating free trials or lower costs would reduce their barriers to adoption, and one-third (33%) saying the same of financial support or tax relief for using AI. Note: Low sample size of non-regular agentic AI users (N=77).
- However, increasing adoption among non-users is not only about removing practical and financial barriers: Two in five (40%) non-users want more reassurance about data protection and compliance requirements.
4. Early agentic AI users are seeing benefits, but concerns about trust, cost, and customer relationships remain.
- Improved efficiency is a common benefit experienced by businesses that use agentic AI assistants at least a few times a month. Over two in five (42%) report that they have saved time on routine tasks as a result of incorporating the technology into their work.
- Agentic AI’s impact extends to cost and output quality: one in five (20%) regular users report that using AI assistants has helped reduce costs. Meanwhile, one in five (20%) regular users of agentic AI assistants report fewer mistakes and rework, and slightly over one-quarter (26%) say the technology has improved the overall quality of their work.
- Most businesses believe AI helps them accomplish tasks that previously required more time, money, or staff (68%).
- When regular users of agentic AI assistants were asked what, if anything, is holding their business back from using AI tools more, one-quarter (25%) cited concern about errors going out without review.
- Over one in five (22%) are held back by the concern that AI could reduce the personal connection customers expect from their business, while a similar proportion (21%) cite the cost of AI tools as a barrier.
- Data privacy is another source of worry: over three in five (63%) businesses are concerned about what happens to business and customer data when they use AI tools. Among businesses that regularly use agentic AI, 20% cite data privacy concerns as a reason they don’t use the technology more often.
Methodology:
This study was conducted online by Ipsos in October 2026 via a weighted sample of n=500 business owners or employees of micro (1-9 employees), small (10-49 employees), and medium (50-249 employees) businesses in Italy. Respondents included active commercial founders, owners, chief executives, and operational decision-makers in enterprises employing between 1 and 249 full-time and part-time personnel (inclusive of the respondent). Enterprises with 250 or more employees were excluded.
For analysis purposes, small and medium-sized businesses were aggregated into one category (SMEs). All participants were aged 18 or older. Respondents were weighted by business size (micro, small, or medium) and country region (Nord-ovest; Nord-est; Centro; Sud; and Isole) according to ISTAT 2023. The data was weighted to be a national representation of the micro, small and medium sized business population of Italy.
Ipsos measures the precision of online, opt-in polls using credibility intervals; results among all businesses have a credibility interval of ±5.4 percentage points. In some cases, results for individual items may not appear to sum to 100%, due to rounding.
For more information on this, please contact:
Scott Gardner, SVP – Ipsos Public Affairs
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