---
title: "17% of small EU firms use AI vs 55% of large; lack of skills is the top barrier"
summary: "Eurostat's 2025 count of AI use by firm size, why firms that considered AI passed, and what an AI seat costs an Indian SMB in rupees. As of September 2026."
url: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/ai-tools-smbs-boosting-efficiency-savings
format: Analysis
desk: "AI in the enterprise"
published: 2025-07-09
facts_checked: 2026-09-30
author: TechBag (The TechBag Journal)
tags: ["AI adoption","SMB","Eurostat","Gemini","Google Workspace","Microsoft 365 Copilot","ChatGPT Business","pricing","DLP","DPDP","GST"]
cover: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/covers/ai-tools-smbs-boosting-efficiency-savings.png
---

# 17% of small EU firms use AI vs 55% of large; lack of skills is the top barrier

*Eurostat's 2025 count of AI use by firm size, why firms that considered AI passed, and what an AI seat costs an Indian SMB in rupees. As of September 2026.*

Analysis · AI in the enterprise · By TechBag · Published 2025-07-09 · Facts checked 2026-09-30 · Canonical: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/ai-tools-smbs-boosting-efficiency-savings

The short version

- Small firms are a third as likely as large ones to use AI at all: 17% of EU enterprises with 10 to 49 staff against 55% of those with 250 or more, in Eurostat’s 2025 survey. Among firms that considered AI and passed, 71% blamed a lack of expertise.[1]
- An AI seat in India costs nothing extra in Google Workspace, ₹1,745 a user a month as Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, and a reported ₹2,099 as ChatGPT Business, before 18% GST. Start with the assistant inside the suite you already pay for.[3][4][5]
- Of the seven tools the 2023 version of this piece recommended, five still trade under their own name, one has been folded into HubSpot and one we cannot identify. Buy the capability, not the logo.

The April 2023 version of this piece listed seven AI tools and quoted three consultancy statistics about savings. The question behind it is the one a small Indian business owner still asks: is AI worth paying for yet, and if so, which seat? Three years on there is a better way to answer it than a tool list. Count how many small firms actually use AI and what stops the rest, then price the seats that matter in rupees.

TechBag countWhat happened to the 2023 list

We opened every tool the original named. Nanonets, tl;dv, BHuman, aitools.fyi and Whimsical still run at their own addresses. ChatSpot’s address now forwards to HubSpot’s Breeze AI assistant. “Movio” carried no link and two different products have used the name, so we cannot say which was meant. Two descriptions were also wrong: BHuman makes personalised video, not résumé screening, and aitools.fyi is a directory of AI tools, not an analytics product.[6]

## Small firms use AI at a third of the rate of large ones

No Indian agency publishes AI use by firm size; the closest official series is Eurostat’s annual survey of enterprises in the 27 EU countries, which asks the same question of firms of every size. In 2025, 20.0% of enterprises with ten or more staff used at least one AI technology, up 6.5 percentage points in a year. The gap by size is the story: 17.0% of small firms, 30.4% of medium-sized ones and 55.0% of large ones.[1]

**Figure: A large firm is 3.2 times as likely as a small one to use AI**

*Share of EU enterprises using at least one AI technology, by size, per cent, 2025*

17%

Small (10 to 49 staff)

30.4%

Medium (50 to 249)

55%

Large (250 and more)

Source: Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises (isoc_eb_ai), data extracted December 2025 · as of 30 September 2026 · EU-27, enterprises with 10 or more persons employed (20.0% of all of them); no comparable official series exists for India

What firms use is less exotic than the 2023 list suggested. The most common technology in 2025 was text mining, used by 11.8% of enterprises, followed by generating pictures, video or sound at 9.6% and generating written or spoken language at 8.8%.[1] In practice that is a chatbot answering questions about documents, a design tool making images, and an assistant drafting emails. All three now come inside software a small business already licenses, which is the point of section 3.

Our view

The EU is not India, and we label this as a proxy. But the shape of the gap is structural rather than cultural: a large firm has someone whose job is to evaluate new software, and a twenty-person firm does not. Nothing about Indian small businesses suggests the gap is narrower here.

## Skills, law and privacy stop more firms than usefulness

Eurostat also asks the firms that considered AI but did not adopt it why. The answer is not that AI is useless to them. Lack of relevant expertise was cited by 70.9%, unclear legal consequences by 52.5%, and data-protection and privacy worries by 48.8%. Only 20.7% said the technology was not useful to their business, the least common reason on the list.[1]

**Figure: Seven in ten firms that passed on AI cited missing skills; one in five said it was not useful**

*Reasons for not using AI among EU enterprises that had considered it, per cent, 2025*

Lack of relevant expertise

70.9%

Unclear legal consequences

52.5%

Data protection and privacy concerns

48.8%

Not useful for the business

20.7%

|  | Value (%) |
| --- | --- |
| Lack of relevant expertise | 70.9 |
| Unclear legal consequences | 52.5 |
| Data protection and privacy concerns | 48.8 |
| Not useful for the business | 20.7 |

Source: Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises, data extracted December 2025 · as of 30 September 2026 · firms could give several reasons; Eurostat's article does not report a figure for cost

Read the top three together and they describe one problem. A small firm does not know what an AI tool will do with its customer data, whether that is lawful, or who internally could check. A list of seven tools answered none of those questions. The fix is cheaper than a new subscription: one named person who owns AI use, a one-page rule on what data may be pasted into which tool, and a preference for the assistant whose data terms the business has already accepted for email and documents.

The evidence against this reading deserves a line. These are firms that considered AI and stopped, so they are the curious minority; the larger group that never considered it may simply see no use. And the survey asks whether a firm uses AI, not whether it saves money. We found no official count of the savings the 2023 post promised, and we would distrust any vendor survey that claims one for small firms in general.

## An AI seat costs ₹0 to ₹2,099 a month in India

The original promised savings without a price. Here are the prices. Google stopped selling Gemini as an add-on in January 2025 and folded it into its Business and Enterprise plans, raising the base price instead.[2] In India, Business Starter is ₹270 a user a month and Business Standard ₹1,080, both with Gemini included and tax extra.[3] Microsoft sells Microsoft 365 Copilot Business as an add-on on top of a Microsoft 365 plan, listed at ₹1,745 a user a month on annual commitment, with GST extra.[4] When OpenAI began testing rupee pricing in August 2025, its Team plan, the tier it now sells as Business, was reported at ₹2,099 a seat a month.[5]

**Figure: The AI already inside Google Workspace costs nothing extra; Copilot and ChatGPT cost ₹1,745 and ₹2,099**

*Price of the AI layer per user per month in India, ₹, annual billing, excluding GST, September 2026*

Gemini in Google Workspace

included

₹0

Microsoft 365 Copilot Business

add-on, list

₹1,745

ChatGPT Business

reported launch price

₹2,099

|  | Value (₹) |
| --- | --- |
| Gemini in Google Workspace | 0 |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | 1,745 |
| ChatGPT Business | 2,099 |

Source: Google Workspace and Microsoft India pricing pages; ChatGPT price as reported by Storyboard18, August 2025 · as of 30 September 2026 · Copilot Business needs a Microsoft 365 base licence; Gemini comes with the Workspace plan; ChatGPT is standalone

TechBag countTechBag arithmetic, 20 users for a year

Copilot Business: 20 × ₹1,745 × 12 = ₹4,18,800, or ₹4,94,184 with 18% GST, on top of the Microsoft 365 licences. ChatGPT Business: 20 × ₹2,099 × 12 = ₹5,03,760. Google Workspace Business Standard, the whole suite with Gemini: 20 × ₹1,080 × 12 = ₹2,59,200 before GST.

The comparison is not like for like, and that is the decision. A firm already on Workspace has paid for its first AI seat and should use it for a quarter before buying another. A firm on Microsoft 365 is choosing whether drafting in Word and summarising Teams calls is worth ₹1,745 a head; for most it is worth it for a few roles, not for everyone. ChatGPT Business suits a team that wants the strongest general assistant regardless of suite, and it is the one where data terms need reading most carefully, because it sits outside the contract that already governs the firm’s email.

If you are buying this in India

**What it costs.** Google and Microsoft print rupee prices with tax extra; add 18% GST. ChatGPT Business is billed by OpenAI by card; through a reseller the invoice is in INR with GST. Vendors run offers below list, so ask in writing for the price that applies on your renewal date.

**The regulation that bites.** Pasting a customer’s details into an AI assistant is processing personal data, and the AI vendor becomes your processor. The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules were notified on 13 November 2025 and the substantive duties on notice, consent and security safeguards apply from 13 May 2027.[8] Stopping the paste is harder than it sounds. TechBag’s DLP guide, reviewed on 24 August 2026, found that most data-loss-prevention products do not document AI prompts as a channel they control; Cyera Omni DLP and Seclore AI-DLP are the two that do.[7] For a small firm, the practical control is choosing the assistant whose data terms you already hold, and writing down what may not go into it.

How we did this

Figures as of 30 September 2026

Adoption, technology and barrier figures are from Eurostat’s Statistics Explained article on AI use in enterprises (EU-27, enterprises with ten or more staff, 2025 survey, data extracted December 2025), rounded to one decimal; the 2024 comparison is Eurostat’s stated 6.47-point rise. Barrier shares are among enterprises that had considered AI. We found no official Indian series by firm size and used none. Prices are the vendors’ Indian list prices on annual billing excluding GST; the ChatGPT figure is the Team price reported at launch of rupee pricing in August 2025 and was not re-verified on OpenAI’s own page, which did not load for us. The seven-tool check opened each address the original named; it records where each address leads, not how each company is doing. The original’s McKinsey and Accenture figures (45% of tasks, 20% cost savings, US$1.2 trillion) were dropped because we could not match them to the dated primary studies. TechBag has no special commercial arrangement with the vendors named that we know of.

Spotted an error? Write to us; corrections are published at the foot of the piece.

Sources

1. [Eurostat, Statistics Explained: Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Use_of_artificial_intelligence_in_enterprises) — data extracted December 2025
2. [Google Workspace Blog, Google Workspace enables the future of AI-powered work for every business](https://workspace.google.com/blog/product-announcements/empowering-businesses-with-AI) — 16 January 2025
3. [Google Workspace, Pricing (India): Business Starter ₹270, Business Standard ₹1,080 a user a month, tax extra; also TechBag’s Google Workspace page](https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_in/pricing.html) — 2026 price page; TechBag page as of 30 September 2026
4. [Microsoft India, Microsoft 365 Copilot Business: ₹1,745 list, annual commitment, GST extra](https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/copilot/business) — 2026 price page
5. [Storyboard18, ChatGPT begins testing local pricing in India (Team ₹2,099 a seat a month)](https://storyboard18.com/digital/chatgpt-begins-testing-local-pricing-in-india-plans-start-at-rs-1999-per-month-78928.htm) — 14 August 2025
6. TechBag check of the seven tools’ addresses (nanonets.com, tldv.io, bhuman.ai, aitools.fyi, whimsical.com, chatspot.ai forwarding to HubSpot Breeze) — checked for this rewrite
7. [TechBag, DLP & insider-risk decision guide (FAQ: can DLP stop data being pasted into ChatGPT?)](https://www.thetechbag.com/browse/data-security-privacy/dlp-insider-risk) — reviewed 24 August 2026
8. [DPDP Rules 2025, commencement timeline](https://legismith.com/dpdp-rules-2025-timeline/) — notified 13 November 2025

Related on TechBag: the [Microsoft Copilot page](https://www.thetechbag.com/microsoft/microsoft-copilot) and the [Google Workspace page](https://www.thetechbag.com/google/google-workspace) cover the two suites priced here; the [DLP guide](https://www.thetechbag.com/browse/data-security-privacy/dlp-insider-risk) covers keeping customer data out of the wrong prompt.

**Disclosure.** TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view.

Go deeper on TechBag

- [DLP & insider-risk guide](https://www.thetechbag.com/browse/data-security-privacy/dlp-insider-risk) — which products document AI prompts as a channel they control
- [Microsoft Copilot intel page](https://www.thetechbag.com/microsoft/microsoft-copilot) — where the per-user AI add-on pays back, and where it does not
- [Google Workspace intel page](https://www.thetechbag.com/google/google-workspace) — Business Starter ₹270 and Standard ₹1,080 a user a month, Gemini included