Artificial intelligence and digital technologies are reshaping the foundations of economic competitiveness across Europe. Yet in Central and Eastern Europe, a persistent gap remains between the potential of these technologies and their actual impact on business performance, particularly among the small and medium-sized enterprises that form the backbone of the region’s economies.
This report examines how gender shapes digital and AI adoption in SMEs across four CEE countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, and Slovakia. It identifies a critical conversion gap: the inability to translate digital tools into measurable productivity gains, innovation capacity, and competitive advantage. Women remain underrepresented in the leadership and decision-making roles where technology strategies are defined, even as they increasingly engage with digital transformation as users and professionals.
The report argues that closing the gender gap in digital and AI adoption is not only a matter of inclusion, but a strategic economic imperative for the region.
Main findings
- The conversion gap is the core competitiveness constraint. SME digital adoption is often shallow, fragmented, and operational rather than strategic. The challenge lies in translating usage into productivity, stronger business models, and innovation capacity.
- Women are excluded from decision-making and strategic direction. While women are active users of digital tools and highly engaged in upskilling, they remain underrepresented in ownership, leadership, and investment networks where technological priorities are set.
- Structural barriers continue to limit women’s progression. Time poverty, unequal care responsibilities, limited access to finance, confidence gaps, interrupted career paths, and restricted networks all hinder advancement into higher-value digital roles.
- Support measures are weakly absorbed. Funding instruments, innovation hubs, and training initiatives exist, but SMEs often lack the capacity or tailored guidance to use them effectively. Cybersecurity and disinformation concerns further slow uptake.
- Uneven digitalisation risks widening economic fragmentation. Advanced firms and urban hubs are progressing faster than smaller businesses and regions, threatening to deepen productivity gaps and regional disparities.
- AI creates a narrow window to rebalance the playing field. AI can lower barriers to entry and increase demand for hybrid skill sets that combine technology, communication, strategy, and creativity, presenting a timely opportunity to mobilise underused talent.
- Inclusion is a strategic economic lever, not a social add-on. Women-focused networks play an important role, but cannot substitute for inclusion in the core decision-making spaces where capital and strategic direction are shaped.
- Stable and predictable ecosystems enable digital transformation. Reliable legal frameworks, coherent tax systems, and trust in institutions are critical enablers of SME digitalisation and risk-taking
Read the full report bellow.