IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18991.html

AI Adoption by Firms: Insights from the Literature and the German Innovation Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Fernández, Gastón P.

    (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER))

  • Rammer, Christian

    (Department Economics of Innovation and Industrial Dynamics ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany)

  • Czarnitzki, Dirk

    (Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, KU Leuven, Belgium)

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of evidence on firms’ adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We revisit the main conceptual drivers of AI uptake discussed in the literature and summarize global trends in AI diffusion. We then examine the firm characteristics associated with adoption—including the distinction between in-house development and external acquisition—and highlight how patterns differ between general AI and generative AI technologies (GenAI). Next, we review the emerging literature on the productivity effects of AI, distinguishing non-experimental firm-level studies from recent experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on task-level impacts. As a case study, we draw on recent firm-level data from the German Innovation Survey to investigate how adoption decisions correlate with firm size, age, R&D intensity, human capital, location, and strategic orientation, and how these patterns vary across stages and types of AI adoption.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernández, Gastón P. & Rammer, Christian & Czarnitzki, Dirk, 2026. "AI Adoption by Firms: Insights from the Literature and the German Innovation Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 18991, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18991
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18991.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • M15 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - IT Management

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18991. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.