Denmark ranks highest with over 27% of businesses using at least one AI technology in 2024—twice the EU average of 13.5%. AI adoption rates are notably higher across businesses in the Nordic and Benelux countries than the rest of Europe. Romania, Türkiye and Poland recorded the lowest adoption rates.

Compared with 2023, AI-adoption rates increased in all countries apart from Türkiye, with the EU-average adoption rate almost doubling from the 8 % recorded in 2023.

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The survey also showed that the larger the business, the higher the AI adoption rates were. Across the EU, 21 % of medium size businesses (50-249 employees) and 41 % of large businesses (+250 employees) used AI, compared to just 11 % among small businesses (10-49 employees).

Denmark had the highest adoption rates across small and medium size businesses, however for large businesses Finland ranked highest with a 70 % adoption rate.

The AI-technologies the survey tracked usage of include:

• technologies analysing written language (text mining)

• technologies converting spoken language into a machine-readable format (speech recognition)

• technologies generating written or spoken language (natural language generation)

• technologies identifying objects or people based on images (image recognition, image processing)

• machine learning (e.g. deep learning) for data analysis

• technologies automating different workflows or assisting in decision-making (AI based software robotic process automation)

• technologies enabling machines to physically move by observing their surroundings and taking autonomous decisions.

Among these, the most commonly AI technologies used were text mining, natural language generation and speech recognition.

Interestingly, the survey also found that the main type of purpose the AI-technologies were used for were marketing and sales (34%) followed by business administration processes/management. Notably, for large businesses (+250 employees), use of AI for ICT security ranked highest.

Explore the data further

One of the main goals of this Substack is to provide insights on data trends as well as recommendations and guides to open data sources and visualisation tools.

Data source

The data used in this article is published by Eurostat on 23 January, and is part of the EU survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises.

A great way to explore the data further is by reading Eurostat’s “Statistics Explained”, covering the main findings. There you will also find downloadable Excel file with data behind all the charts used in that article.

The source tables can be viewed in the Eurostat Data Browser. There you can dig deeper into the data by looking at for example specific AI technology use, or time-series data. A breakdown of AI use by industry sector can be found in this table.

Visualisation tool

The charts and tables used in this post is made with Datawrapper.

The data in the charts used in this article can be downloaded directly from the link below the charts by pressing “Get the data”. This can be helpful if you want to create your own visualisations from this dataset.

If you find it helpful to reuse these charts, I have made them available on Datawrapper River, where you can find a “Reuse this chart” button using the below links. Doing that will import the chart directly into your Datawrapper account (which is free to set-up). In this way you can, for example, try out different ways to visualise the data.

Datawrapper River links:

• AI use in European businesses

• AI use by business size

• Purpose of using AI

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at newly published provisional data for 2023 covering almost all OECD countries, released in the OECD Revenue Statistics 2024. We will also cover how you can explore the data further yourself on the OECD website.

Stable tax-to-GDP ratio in 2023

The average tax-to-GDP ratio across OECD member countries remained stable at 33.9% in 2023, down just 0.1 percentage points from 2022, according to the OECD data. Although this is the second straight year of slight decline, the figure remains above its pre-pandemic level of 33.4% in 2019.

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France had the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in 2023

An overview of tax burdens across OECD countries shows that they differ markedly, ranging from 17.7% of GDP in Mexico to 43.8% in France — a gap of 26.1 percentage points. A total of 9 countries, including France, had a tax-to-GDP ratio of more than 40%. Notably, France also had the highest ratio in 2022.

Japan has seen the largest increase since 2010

The OECD data shows that since 2010, the tax-to-GDP ratio has increased in 29 OECD countries, with Japan, the Slovak Republic and Greece recording the biggest jumps. Ireland, on the other hand, experienced the steepest decline (-5.8 percentage points), largely due to an exceptional surge in its GDP in 2015.

It’s important to note that a rise in the tax-to-GDP ratio does not automatically mean tax revenues themselves are higher in absolute terms. Sometimes, the economy might be shrinking (bringing GDP down) even if taxes stay relatively stable, which would push the ratio up. Conversely, an economy might boom while tax revenues grow only a little, causing the ratio to fall. Essentially, the ratio reflects how tax revenues and economic output grow or contract relative to each other.

Recent figures for 2023 highlight this dynamic: nominal tax revenues rose in 31 of the 36 OECD countries reporting data, while nominal GDP increased in 33. In Denmark and Ireland, tax revenues went up even though GDP fell, causing the tax-to-GDP ratio to increase. The opposite was true in the United States, Israel, Korea and Chile, where GDP increased while tax revenues went down in nominal terms.

Meanwhile, in Norway, both tax revenues and GDP declined, but revenues dropped more sharply—pulling the ratio down (-2.0 pp compared to 2022). These movements underscore that the tax-to-GDP ratio reflects how tax revenues and economic output change relative to each other, rather than purely measuring absolute increases or decreases in tax receipts.

Further reading

One of the main goals of this Substack is to provide practical insights on data trends and useful recommendations for open data sources and visualisation tools.

Data source

The data used in this article is published by OECD. The 2023 provisional data were published in November 2024 in their annual Revenue Statistics report.

You can explore the dataset further in the OECD Data Explorer. Also, the report is available to read as an interactive version here. One tip is that in order to get the data behind the charts presented in the report, look for a blue “Statlink” icon. This will link to an Excel file where you will find all the data used in that chart.

Visualisation tool

The charts and tables used in this post is made with Datawrapper.

The data in the charts used in this article can be downloaded directly from the link below the charts by pressing “Get the data”. This can be helpful if you want to create your own visualisations from this dataset.

If you find it helpful to reuse these charts, I have made them available on Datawrapper River, where you can find a “Reuse this chart” button using the below links. Doing that will import the chart directly into your Datawrapper account (which is free to set-up). In this way you can, for example, try out different ways to visualise the data.

Datawrapper River links:

• Average OECD tax-to-GDP ratio over time

• Tax-to-GDP ratio in OECD-countries

• Change in tax-to-GDP ratio in OECD-countries

Another way to look at the estimated life expectancy is that a newborn EU citizen in 2023 will live until the year 2104. However, it’s important to note that the life expectancy estimates assumes current mortality rates stay the same for throughout the lifetime of the 2023 birth cohort2.

Which EU Countries Have the Highest and Lowest Life Expectancy?

Eurostat's data shows significant variation among the EU27 countries:

• Highest: Spain, with a life expectancy of 84 years, followed closely by Italy (83.8 years) and Malta (83.6 years).

• Lowest: Bulgaria, at 75.8 years, followed by Latvia (75.9 years) and Romania (76.6 years).

A newborn in Spain is thus expected to live over 8 years longer than newborn in Bulgaria.

While both Bulgaria and Romania are at the lower end, they are among the countries with the largest gains in life expectancy since 2019. On the other hand, Finland and Austria, despite their relatively high life expectancy levels, recorded the largest decreases since 2019.

If we take a longer perspective, Estonia stands out with the most significant increase, adding over 7 years to its life expectancy since 2002, the first year for which data for all EU countries is available.

Further reading

One of the main goals of this Substack is to provide practical insights on data trends and useful recommendations for open data sources and visualisation tools.

Data source

The data used in this article is published by Eurostat. The 2023 provisional estimates where published in May 2024. You can explore the dataset further in the Eurostat Data Browser. Note that Eurostat also publish data for several non-EU countries.

Visualisation tool

The charts and tables used in this post are made with Datawrapper.

The data in the charts used in this article can be downloaded directly from the link below the charts by pressing “Get the data.” This can be helpful if you want to create your own visualisations from this dataset.

If you find it helpful to reuse these charts, I have made them available on Datawrapper River, where you can find a “Reuse this chart” button using the links below. Doing that will import the chart directly into your Datawrapper account (which is free to set up). In this way, you can, for example, try out different ways to visualise the data.

Datawrapper River links:

• Chart of EU average life expectancy over time

• Dot chart comparing EU countries

• Table comparing EU countries from 2019 to 2023

• Table comparing EU countries from 2002 to 2023