Public Support for Artificial Intelligence Adoption in European Enterprises: Industrial Policy, Organisational Capacity and Human-Centred Conditions for Economic Value

Abstract

This essay examines public support for artificial-intelligence adoption by European enterprises from a law-and-economics and industrial-policy perspective. The expansion of European support for digitalisation, research, innovation, infrastructure and skills has increased the capacity of public intervention to accelerate technological diffusion, yet technological access does not by itself ensure effective organisational adoption or economic value. Drawing on the evolving European framework for industrial policy and State aid, and on recent evidence from Eurostat, the European Central Bank, the Bank for International Settlements and Banca d’Italia, the analysis identifies a conversion problem that runs between public support, enterprise capability, sustained use and measurable value. The effectiveness of support may therefore be assessed not only by expenditure, technology acquisition or the number of beneficiaries, but also by the complementary organisational and human conditions that allow supported technologies to become embedded in productive activity. Human-centred acceptance appears in this framework as one condition of effective economic intervention, alongside skills, data, integration capacity, legal certainty and organisational readiness. On that basis a five-stage conversion framework is set out, linking public support, organisational capability, human-centred acceptance, sustained adoption and economic, regulatory and human value. Particular attention is given to the Italian productive system and to the implications for the design and evaluation of support instruments directed at small and medium-sized enterprises.