OpenAI Report: Agentic AI Usage Rises in EU SMEs
European businesses are increasingly shifting toward agentic artificial intelligence tools that handle end-to-end tasks from planning to completion, according to a report published by OpenAI Economic Research. The shift has driven sharp user growth across small and medium-sized enterprises since May 2026, though a significant gap remains between European firms and global leaders in output volume.
Rapid Growth in Small and Medium Enterprises
The number of weekly active users of agentic tools like Codex and ChatGPT Work within European small and medium-sized enterprises multiplied by 8.1 since May 2026. Companies in this category are defined as organizations with a maximum of 200 active product users. Every European Union member state recorded an increase in adoption over this period. For enterprise accounts, agentic tools now claim a substantial portion of overall activity. In the sampled data, output tokens generated by Codex and ChatGPT Work accounted for more than half of the total volume.
Adoption rates vary widely across member states. Among the sampled ChatGPT Enterprise accounts, the share of output tokens generated by agentic workflows ranged from 22 percent in Slovenia up to 85 percent in Lithuania. Beyond sheer intensity, the specific types of tasks delegated to ChatGPT differ significantly from one country to another.
The Productivity Gap With Global Competitors
European companies sitting in the top 10 percent by output token volume per active person expanded their usage over typical firms, but trailed behind the global frontrunners. In September, leading EU enterprises generated more than four times the output tokens per active person compared to typical EU counterparts. However, leading enterprises outside the European Union produced more than double the output volume of the top European tier. Firms headquartered in the EU accounted for only 10 percent of the world’s leading organizations by this metric.
The divergence highlights an uneven distribution of AI utilization across the regional market. As agentic systems mature, European businesses face the challenge of converting broader adoption into deeper operational intensity. Bridging this gap requires targeted support to move firms beyond basic experimentation, alongside efforts to ensure employees possess the necessary digital competencies and trust to integrate autonomous tools into daily workflows.