Ireland is “punching above its weight” globally as a hub for artificial intelligence (AI), new research from Deloitte Ireland has revealed, with companies here integrating the technology into their structures at a faster rate than many of their international peers.
The Big Four accountancy firm polled some 2,000 senior executives, including more than 100 from large companies in the Republic, on their attitudes to AI across 15 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
It found that one in four firms here have already appointed a chief AI officer, compared to 19 per cent across the other countries included in the survey.
Ireland was second only to Belgium in this category, where 29 per cent of companies have already made a senior appointment focused specifically on the technology.
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Large companies here have also formalised AI governance, integrating it into their corporate structures, at the highest rate across the 15 countries, with 81 per cent of businesses in the Republic stating that they have already taken those actions.
Almost half of the companies, meanwhile, said they were seeing a return on their investment in AI within two years.
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An overwhelming 91 per cent of Irish companies also said they plan to increase financial investment in the technology, with 87 per cent indicating that they have already boosted spending on AI in the past year.
“What we are seeing is that Ireland is emerging as a true leader in AI value realisation,” said Ita Langton, head of technology and transformation at Deloitte Ireland.
“This is being driven by C-suite leadership in Ireland, with 30 per cent of AI use cases being identified by this group. This is one of the highest in Europe following the UK (36 per cent), Belgium (33 per cent) and Germany (32 per cent).”
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Ms Langton said that with almost half of large Irish companies already reporting returns from AI, investment “is no longer speculative” and “reinforces Ireland’s position at the forefront of AI maturity across EMEA”.
The Government relaunched its national AI strategy in 2024.
Among other things, the strategy is targeting at least 75 per cent take-up among small and medium enterprises of AI, cloud, and data analytics by 2030.
