AI use quadruples among Austrian retailers

Artificial intelligence use among Austrian retail companies has quadrupled in two years, according to an analysis reported by ORF. The share of retail businesses with at least 10 employees using AI applications rose from 5.1% in 2023 to 20.9% in 2025.

The analysis was conducted by the Institute for Trade, Sales and Marketing at Johannes Kepler University Linz. Austria is now well above the European Union average, with 15.5% of retail companies across the bloc using AI, according to Eurostat and Statistics Austria data.

Austria rose from 14th to ninth place in the European comparison. Denmark ranked first, with 32.1% of companies using AI, followed by Slovenia and the Netherlands. Germany was just ahead of Austria at 23.4%.

The institute said many retail companies were open to new technologies, but their long-term integration into business processes and models would be crucial. Trade researcher Ernst Gittenberger said Austrian retailers had integrated AI “significantly faster than the EU as a whole”. He also noted that the survey covered only companies with at least 10 employees, so it could not show how widely small and micro-businesses use AI.

AI is currently used most often in customer-related areas. Some 12.3% of retail companies use it for marketing or sales, while 11.8% use it to create images, videos or audio content. A further 10.5% use AI for data analysis. The technology is much less common in logistics, research, controlling and administration.

The study’s authors said this suggested that companies were prioritising applications that were relatively easy to introduce and could deliver benefits quickly.

Christoph Teller, head of the institute, said AI should primarily support employees. Its value was greatest when it eased routine tasks and left more time for personal contact with customers, he said. The key issue was not how visible the technology was, but the concrete benefit it provided in daily work and for the shopping experience.