Artificial intelligence is already a primary factor driving current economic activity in the euro area, European Central Bank Executive Board member Philip R. Lane said in dinner remarks at the International AI Summit. Lane described AI as a general purpose technology capable of improving global living standards and raising productivity, while cautioning that delivering those benefits depends on a wide range of actors — from frontier model developers and infrastructure builders to educators, financial institutions, and workers — playing their respective parts.
Lane cited ECB survey data showing that, in the fourth quarter of 2025, most European firms reported using AI: 64 per cent said they were using it either experimentally or moderately, while only 7 per cent described their use as "significant." On the workforce side, a separate household survey found that 52 per cent of workers now report using AI at work, up from 26 per cent in 2024 — a doubling over two years. Workers reported significant time savings, though these are highly concentrated in specific sectors and specialised tasks such as coding.
On the investment side, Lane noted that firms are set to devote around 10 per cent of their total investment to AI in the current year, while AI-related lending accounts for roughly one quarter of recent credit growth to firms. Despite the pace of adoption, he said it remains too early to detect any material impact on aggregate productivity.
Lane also flagged labour market implications, noting that hiring plans are muted — a development that particularly affects new graduates — and that AI's potential to replace certain types of workers may weaken their bargaining power, moderating wage growth and reducing the labour share in total income. Variation across industries is significant, with workers in sectors benefiting from the AI infrastructure buildout currently more optimistic than those in knowledge-intensive sectors facing greater substitution risk.
For Europe specifically, Lane highlighted the potential for AI to offset the projected trend decline in the working-age population as "especially valuable," with positive implications for potential output and trend growth in the medium to long term. He noted that the scale of Europe's AI surge remains of a different order to that seen in the United States or East Asia. The ECB is closely monitoring AI's impact on the euro area economy, including its implications for the financial system and European innovation and monetary policy.
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