January 23, 2024, London, UK – Spendesk, the 7-in-1 spend management solution for SMEs, today shared the findings of a new study, in which European companies were surveyed on business spend relating to AI-tools. The results underpin the recent explosion of AI — particularly relating to ChatGPT — with growth seen across both the total amounts spent and the transaction quantity per business.
Key Findings:
40% of Europeans SMBs surveyed paid for AI tools, with average spend per company rising from 431€ in 2022, to 675€ / £581.81 in 2023.
ChatGPT is the most-used AI tool with 85% of the transactions across the UK, Germany and France, with MidJourney trailing at 12.8% and Fireflies.ai at 1.9%.
The volume of transactions for AI tools saw an increase across Europe, with the UK’s rising by over 100 times, France’s by almost 130 times, and Germany’s by over 150 times.
Despite reporting lower growth in the volume of transactions for AI tools than France and Germany, UK companies were revealed to pay the most for AI tools on average, at 835€ / £719.52.
“Investment in artificial intelligence tools ramped up last year, despite economic uncertainty, with OpenAI in particular driving the democratisation of AI and its many uses,” commented Stephane Baranzelli, VP Europe of Spendesk. “While 2023 centred around the discovery and adoption for AI, in 2024, its widespread implementation will be evident across companies of all sizes and industries. The organisations that take a considered and educated approach, combining AI with human intelligence, will reap the biggest rewards these tools can offer.”
Methodology: The survey was conducted in December 2023, and the data derives from the analysis of the average spend per Spendesk customer from 2022-2023. This data represents 5,000 companies, predominantly consisting of small to medium-sized businesses, in the UK, France, and Germany.