OpenAI: The disparity in the intensity of enterprise AI usage in the European Union is significant

On October 14, the OpenAI Economic Research Team released a report stating that EU companies are expanding the use of AI with agent tools, no longer just asking questions to AI, but using agents to complete tasks from planning to execution. The report examines the growth of agent usage among large and small enterprises, differences in usage intensity, and the types of work people are accomplishing with ChatGPT.

In a sample of EU clients using ChatGPT Enterprise, Codex and ChatGPT work currently contribute over half of the output tokens. Since May 2026, the number of weekly active users of Codex and ChatGPT work among EU small and medium-sized enterprises has increased to more than 8.1 times the original, with growth in all member states. The article defines small and medium-sized enterprises as those with no more than 200 associated users.

The proportion of relevant output tokens in the sample is lowest in Slovenia at 22% and highest in Lithuania at 85%. Leading enterprises are defined as those ranking in the top 10% for output tokens per active user, with the sample including only ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Business accounts. In September, this metric for leading enterprises in the EU exceeded that of general EU enterprises by four times, while leading enterprises outside the EU still surpassed leading enterprises in the EU by more than twice, with companies headquartered in the EU accounting for only 10% of the world's leading enterprises.