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Weekly digest ·

In France, 10% of companies use AI, rising to 32% of SMEs and mid-sized companies, according to Bpifrance

In France, INSEE reports that 10% of companies use AI, while Bpifrance Le Lab puts adoption among SMEs and mid-sized companies at 32%, well below the 58% of executives who consider it vital. In Spain, an OpenAI study finds that 97% of SMEs already use AI, but without a formal framework, while the government presents its IA360 Plan and Anthropic opens its first Spanish office in Madrid. Large groups such as TotalEnergies and Crédit Agricole, as well as the start-up Delos, announce major AI investments or fundraising rounds.

Key developments

  1. In France, AI is progressing but remains a minority practice among SMEs and mid-sized companies

    According to INSEE, 10% of French companies with 10 or more employees used an AI technology in 2024/2025, up from 6% in 2023. A Bpifrance Le Lab study of French SMEs and mid-sized companies shows that 58% of executives consider AI vital in the medium term, but only 32% use it, 26% of them through generative AI, compared with 40% among US SMEs. In 73% of cases the impetus comes from the executive personally; 67% of executives under 35 have adopted AI, compared with 46% of those over 45. 54% of SMEs and mid-sized companies that use AI rely on free solutions.

    Sources: Bpifrance

  2. Spain drives SME adoption with a national plan

    According to an OpenAI study of 1,000 Spanish SME managers, 97% of their companies already use AI, 59% of them regularly, but 39% have no formal usage policy and 70% of managers report unstructured use by employees. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez presented the IA360 Plan, a twelve-month roadmap that includes a "Bono Inteligencia Artificial" for SMEs and self-employed workers, with the aim that more than half of Spanish companies will have integrated AI by 2030. The public agency Red.es is also launching a €40 million call for projects to develop use cases for SMEs and start-ups.

    Sources: La Razón, Business Insider España, Europa Press, La Moncloa, MuyPymes

  3. Anthropic opens its first Spanish office

    Anthropic has opened its first Spanish office in Madrid, led by Cristina Pitarch, a former Google and Salesforce executive, bringing its number of European offices to seven. According to Anthropic's Economic Index, Claude usage in Spain is 2.7 times higher than the country's share of population would suggest. The company already claims large Spanish companies as clients, including Santander, CaixaBank, BBVA, Telefónica, Indra, Konecta, Amadeus and Ferrovial, with uses ranging from software development to cybersecurity at Telefónica and civil engineering at Ferrovial. Anthropic is also entering a partnership with ISDI Business School for a community of Claude ambassadors in Madrid.

    Sources: El País, El Español, El Nacional.cat, El Cronista, PortalERP

  4. Delos raises €10 million for its virtual employees

    The Paris-based start-up Delos, which develops virtual workers called "Workers" with memory, an email address and a phone number, has closed a €10 million round led by Bpifrance, C4 Ventures and Founders Future. Commercially launched four months ago, the solution is deployed in more than 300 companies, including about ten mid-sized companies and large groups such as TotalEnergies, Meilleurtaux, Icade and Cuisines Schmidt, with 2,000 Workers active around the clock. Recurring revenue has risen from €2.5 million to €5 million in three months, against a target of €10 million ARR by year-end. The round is also intended to fund expansion into the United States.

    Sources: Journal du Net, Silicon.fr, FrenchWeb

  5. Large French groups invest heavily in AI

    TotalEnergies and Mistral AI have announced an investment of more than €100 million over three years to develop AI models dedicated to exploration and reservoir engineering for oil and gas, drawing on nearly a century of the oil group's subsurface data. At the BigData & AI Paris trade show, which drew around 15,000 visitors, Mistral AI stated that nine out of ten POCs fail to scale in companies. For its part, the Crédit Agricole group announced €500 million of investment in AI over three years, including €150 million to create a dedicated in-house company, aiming for an impact across its 160,000 employees and 55 million customers.

    Sources: Alliancy (1, 2), IT for Business

Figures of the week

  • 10 %

    share of French companies with 10 or more employees using an AI technology

    France, companies with 10 or more employees, 2024/2025

    « 10 % des entreprises françaises de 10 salariés ou plus utilisent des technologies d'IA, un chiffre en progression constante (contre 6 % en 2023). »

    Bpifrance , from INSEE, Enquête TIC 2024/2025

  • 32 %

    SMEs and mid-sized companies currently using AI

    French SMEs and mid-sized companies

    « 58 % des dirigeants de PME/ETI considèrent l'IA comme un enjeu de survie à moyen terme, mais seulement 32 % l'utilisent actuellement. »

    Bpifrance , from Bpifrance Le Lab

  • 97 %

    share of Spanish SMEs that use AI in their business

    SMEs in Spain, OpenAI survey of 1,000 SME managers, 2026

    « un 97 por ciento de las pymes en España utiliza IA como parte de su actividad habitual para impulsar sus tareas »

    Europa Press , from Étude OpenAI

  • 87 %

    share of CFOs who consider AI extremely or very important for their department in 2026

    CFOs, Deloitte Q4 2025 CFO Signals Survey

    « 87% of CFOs believe AI will be extremely or very important to their department’s operations in 2026 »

    Deloitte , from Deloitte Q4 2025 CFO Signals Survey

  • 80 %

    share of TCS contracts (finance/HR segment) based on performance indicators

    TCS finance, HR and enterprise services segment

    « environ 80 % des contrats de son segment finance, ressources humaines et autres services d'entreprise reposent désormais sur des indicateurs de performance, contre une proportion deux fois moindre avant la généralisation de l'IA générative fin 2023. »

    Silicon.fr

In France and Spain

France

A barometer from Opiiec covering 606 French digital, engineering and consulting companies shows that 7% have reduced headcount because of AI, mainly among very small firms, while 9% have created dedicated roles. According to CESIN, 27% of member organisations, mostly mid-sized ones, have defined no usage policy for generative AI, and 54% of large companies have already suffered a deepfake attack. The Groupe SVP barometer, presented at the Congress of the Ordre des Experts-Comptables, indicates that 90% of chartered accountants expect AI to have a real impact on their profession, in firms where its use often remains informal.

Sources: Journal du Net, Silicon.fr, DAF Magazine

Spain

According to the Bank of Spain, a lack of skilled staff holds back AI adoption in 45.8% of companies, ahead of cost, cited by 40.8% of them; 45.3% do not use AI and do not plan to in the short term. According to the INE, 21.1% of Spanish companies with ten or more employees and 13.4% of companies with fewer than ten employees were using AI technologies in the first quarter of 2026. The obligations of the AI Act come into effect in stages from December 2026, with fines of up to €35 million or 7% of worldwide turnover for certain infringements.

Sources: El Ecosistema Startup, Diario Autónomos y Emprendedor

Internationally

United States

Anthropic is promoting Claude for Small Business to American small businesses through workshops, despite public criticism of the use of AI by some executives. In pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk has signed with Anthropic to test Claude Science, an environment connected to more than sixty databases, following partnerships with OpenAI and Amazon Web Services; OpenAI, for its part, has launched GPT-Rosalind with Amgen, Moderna, the Allen Institute and Thermo Fisher Scientific as pilot partners. In IT services, the major Indian IT services firms TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and Cognizant are restructuring their contracts with US and German clients: at TCS, 80% of contracts in the finance and HR segment are now based on performance indicators, and Wipro has redeployed the equivalent of 20,000 employees rather than laying them off.

Sources: Business Insider, Silicon.fr (1, 2)

Rest of the world

In the United Kingdom, a study by Small Business Britain and Alibaba.com shows that 70% of small business leaders say they are confident with generative AI, but only 48% use it regularly. In Argentina, according to Mercado Libre's "Efecto MELI" study, nearly half of the companies selling on the platform used AI for the first time in 2025, mainly to improve their product images. In Mexico, an Amazon Ads study indicates that 88% of SMEs using AI advertising tools believe they have reached audiences that were previously out of reach.

Sources: Business Matters, El Cronista, El Economista (México)

Method

Digest written on 6 October 2026 by an AI model (Claude Sonnet 5, by Anthropic) from the 54 articles published in the AI watch for 14 – 20 September 2026. Each paragraph links to the entries it draws on, and every number in the text was found in one of those articles before publication. The figures of the week are given with the exact sentence from the article that provides them. Digest translated from French by Claude Sonnet 5.5.

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