Nearly Three Quarters of Large Companies in the Czech Republic Use AI

The proportion of businesses using artificial intelligence doubled to 35 per cent in a year. Paid cloud services and high-speed internet connections have also become more widespread.

In 2026, 35 per cent of businesses surveyed in the Czech Republic used AI, according to a Europe-wide survey on business digitalisation. The figure was nearly three quarters among large companies, around half among medium-sized businesses and just under a third among small firms.

Kamila Burešová of the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ) said AI use remained most widespread among large companies. Adoption also varied considerably by sector.

Businesses most often use AI to generate text, code or speech

Generating text, writing code and producing natural-sounding speech were the most common uses of AI, with 31 per cent of businesses surveyed using tools for these tasks. Around one in five businesses used AI to generate images, videos or music. A similar proportion used it to analyse documents, search for information or run chatbots.

Eight per cent of businesses used machine learning or deep learning to analyse data. Five per cent used AI to recognise objects, people or documents in images.

Six in ten businesses pay for cloud services

In 2026, 60 per cent of businesses in the Czech Republic used paid cloud services. The proportion has more than tripled in ten years.

Paid email services using a company’s own domain were the most common, used by 54 per cent of businesses. A further 42 per cent paid for cloud-based office applications or online data storage. Paid cloud tools offering generative AI were used by 17 per cent of businesses.

High-speed internet and IT security

Among businesses with at least ten employees, 56 per cent had a fixed internet connection with a download speed of at least 100 megabits per second. That was ten percentage points higher than in 2024. Ten per cent had a connection of at least one gigabit per second, rising to 26 per cent among large companies.

Strong passwords were used by 87 per cent of businesses, while 71 per cent backed up their data to external storage. Around half used multi-factor authentication, which requires at least two different ways of verifying a user’s identity when they sign in. A third used biometric methods such as fingerprint or facial recognition.

Sixty per cent of businesses used a virtual private network (VPN) to access their company network securely from outside the workplace. The figure was 96 per cent among large companies and 53 per cent among small businesses with ten to 49 employees.