Businesses in numbers: AI, social media and online advertising

AI in companies

AI adoption by European businesses has accelerated sharply since 2023. According to Eurostat (isoc_eb_ai), 19.9% of EU-27 enterprises with ten or more employees used at least one AI technology in 2025, more than double the 8.1% of 2023.

The Netherlands is well ahead. Dutch adoption rose from 13.1% in 2021 to 23.1% in 2024 and 33.2% in 2025, roughly one enterprise in three. Bulgaria started lower and has moved more slowly: 3.3% in 2021, 6.5% in 2024 and 8.6% in 2025, so the Dutch share is close to four times the Bulgarian one.

For suppliers of AI tools and services, these are markets at very different stages. In the Netherlands, research on buyers is often about the choice of provider, integration and governance. In Bulgaria, where more than nine firms in ten do not yet use AI, the pressing question is usually what holds adoption back. Screening criteria and survey vocabulary need to reflect that. Eurostat has no figure for 2022, so the series has a gap.

Social media

Business use of social media has grown unevenly. In 2025, 83.8% of Dutch enterprises with ten or more employees used at least one type of social media, against 63.6% across the EU-27 and 41.5% in Bulgaria, according to Eurostat (isoc_cismt).

The long-term trend highlights the gap. Bulgarian use rose from 27.6% in 2014 to 38.0% in 2023 and 41.5% in 2025, while the EU-27 share went from 34.2% to 63.6% over the same period. The Netherlands was already at 57.7% in 2014. Between 2023 and 2025, the Dutch figure barely moved, from 83.2% to 83.8%, which suggests the market is close to saturation.

For B2B marketers, this means that most Dutch enterprises have a social media presence, while fewer than half of Bulgarian ones do. Company social accounts and professional networks therefore cover a larger share of the Dutch market, both as a marketing channel and as a source for research. In Bulgaria, sampling from business registers and recruiting by telephone usually reach more of the target group.

Paid online advertising

Paid internet advertising shows a gap that has opened over the past decade. In 2024, according to Eurostat (isoc_cismt), 41.5% of Dutch enterprises with ten or more employees paid to advertise online, compared with 32.6% across the EU-27 and 25.6% in Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian figure has hardly changed over a decade: it was 25.1% in 2014, dipped to 18.7% in 2016, stood at 21.0% in 2018 and 20.9% in 2023, before returning to 25.6% in 2024. The EU-27 share, by contrast, rose from 24.9% in 2014 to 32.6% in 2024, and the Dutch share from 28.6% to 41.5%, with most of the Dutch increase recorded by 2023.

In other words, Bulgarian businesses were about as likely as the EU average to pay for online advertising in 2014, but were well behind by 2024. Paid search and social channels in Bulgaria may therefore be less crowded with business advertisers, a hypothesis worth testing in a digital market analysis before you set channel budgets.

Key takeaways

• AI adoption separates the markets: about one Dutch enterprise in three used AI in 2025, against fewer than one in ten in Bulgaria, so a single EU-wide go-to-market message is likely to miss one of them.
• Business use of social media in the Netherlands appears saturated, while in Bulgaria fewer than half of enterprises use it, which shapes both marketing reach and research recruitment.
• Paid online advertising by Bulgarian firms in 2024 was at about the same level as in 2014, so the share of businesses competing in paid channels differs sharply between the two countries.
• When planning B2B research, use these shares to set realistic screening criteria and incidence assumptions, and size the sample with our sample size calculator.