The Dynamics of the ICT Workforce and the Effects on the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies in the European Union

This paper represents an analysis made using statistical methods of the influence of the number of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specialists on the number of businesses that use and invest in technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI). Throughout the article, the authors analyze two sets of statistical data collected by Eurostat: the share of ICT specialists in the overall active population and the number of companies that use and invest in AI technologies, both datasets referring to the European Union. Using several statistical methods, such as normality tests, correlation analysis and regression analysis on the datasets, the results show that the relation between the number of ICT specialists and the number of businesses that use and invest in AI technologies is a positive one, which means that the bigger the share of ICT specialists in the overall active population, the more businesses will adopt and use AI technologies. Therefore, the conclusions emphasize the important role that ICT specialists play when discussing about raising the rate of adoption of newer technologies, based on AI and the content of the paper underlines the fact that the more businesses and companies use and invest in AI, the more these technologies will be used in other industries as well, such as finance and education, the least playing a critical role in forming the next generation of ICT specialists with a strong knowledge in the AI field. The role these specialists play in growing the rate of adoption of AI technologies is also confirmed by the literature review. Moreover, the paper also presents a series of conclusions relevant to entrepreneurs and teachers that are willing to include these kind of technologies into their daily activities and also a series of measures to stimulate the rate of adoption of artificial intelligence based technologies in the European Union.