| Deutsche Bundesbank

Q2 2025: Impact of generative AI on the world of work
In the second quarter of 2025, firms were first asked if they already used generative AI or were planning to use it in the near future. If this was the case, these firms were asked several follow-up questions on their use of generative AI and its impact.
A majority of these firms expected that their use of generative AI would improve their profitability, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.

Firms that stated that they had already used generative AI in 2024 were also asked about its impact on productivity, wages, and number of employees. For 2024, 46 % of firms reported an increase in labour productivity and 31 % reported an increase in their number of higher-skilled employees as a result of their use of generative AI. At 79 % and 83 %, respectively, significant proportions of firms reported no change in their average wages and numbers of lower-skilled employees.

In addition, firms that already used generative AI or were planning to use it in the near future were also asked to estimate the share of working hours spent using generative AI in their enterprise. While 63 % of firms reported spending a maximum of 5 % of their working hours using generative AI in 2024, only 51 % expected to spend a maximum of 5 % of working hours using generative AI in 2026.

Download

List of all questions asked on the topic of AI

Questionnaire 21 for the Survey of Firms (BOP-F) April, May, June 2025

30.06.2025 | 739 KB, PDF
Q1 2025: Expected changes in sales over a 12-month horizon

In the first quarter of 2025, firms were asked about their short-term sales expectations. The median for the corporate sector as a whole stood at 3.3%. In sectoral terms, firms in the information and communication sector expected the largest increase in sales over the next 12 months (an increase of 5.3%), while firms in the wholesale and retail trade sectors expected the smallest increase (a rise of 2.0%).
Q1 2025: Hedging against exchange rate fluctuations

In the first quarter of 2025, firms reporting that exchange rate fluctuations would affect their costs and/or revenue were asked whether they would hedge against exchange rate fluctuations using financial instruments. The majority of firms said no, with only 8 % stating that they would hedge accordingly using financial instruments.
Q4 2024: Artificial intelligence

Expectations for the use of artificial intelligence over the next five years
In the fourth quarter of 2024, firms were asked whether they expected to use artificial intelligence (AI) over the next five years. Across all sectors, 60% of firms answered “yes”. Broken down by sector, two-thirds of firms in the other service activities, financial and insurance activities, and information and communication sectors expected to use AI, whereas only one-third of firms in the mining, energy and agriculture sectors did so.

Respondents who answered “yes” were asked a follow-up question about how they expected the use of AI to affect various business metrics. On average, firms expected that it would lead to an additional 7.5% increase in their investment and an additional 7.2% increase in their sales over the next five years. The additional increase in costs was estimated at 2.4% on average and the expected additional increase in corporate profits was 5.8%. For more information, see the chart below.
Q2 2024: Credit negotiations

In the second quarter of 2024, 15.1% of firms reported conducting negotiations with a view to taking out a loan in the previous quarter. This figure was just under 1 percentage point higher than when firms were asked the same question in the first quarter of 2024 and was significantly higher than the low of 12.5% recorded in the first quarter of 2023.

When asked about the reasons behind their credit negotiations, 54% of firms stated that they did so to finance an investment, while 35% of firms wished to finance running costs.

In the second quarter of 2024, 85% of firms reported that they did not conduct any negotiations with a view to taking out a loan in the previous quarter. Again, when asked why, 64% of firms responded that there was no need for financing, while 42% stated that their financing needs could be met using own resources. That said, 11% of firms refrained from credit negotiations because they did not want to be dependent on debt financing.
Q1 2024: Expected change in domestic investment

Firms were asked to consider their expected investment compared with a scenario in which climate change did not exist. In the first quarter of 2024, 36% of firms expected their domestic investment to increase between 2024 and 2026, driven by climate change and the associated economic transformation. 4% of these firms even expected an increase of over 30%. Just under half of firms (48%) expected these factors to have little impact on their investment expenditure. By contrast, 16% of firms anticipated their domestic investment to decline due to climate change and its consequences.
Q1 2024: Expected change in sales as a function of production and labour costs

An analysis of the data from the first quarter of 2024 shows that the more firms considered high production and labour costs to be problematic for the near future, the weaker the expected increase in sales for the current year was//turned out to be. For example, firms that considered said costs unproblematic expected an average increase in sales of 8%. By contrast, firms for which high production and labour costs were a pressing problem expected sales to increase by just under 3%.
Q1 2024: Share of production costs accounted for by energy costs

The average share of production costs for firms in Germany accounted for by energy costs has declined since the question was first asked in Q1 2022, falling from 10.5% to 8.6% in Q1 2023 and most recently to 8.5% in Q1 2024.
Q1 2024: High regulation and government rules pose a problem

High levels of regulation and government rules are seen by enterprises in Germany as problematic for the most part. In sectoral terms, the financial and insurance, mining, energy, agriculture and construction sectors are the frontrunners, with between 78% and 76% of firms classifying such rules and regulations as a pressing problem. Only in the information and communication sector did just under half of firms consider high levels of regulation or government rules to be problematic.
Q4 2023: Increase in expenditure on energy and fuels

Firms in Germany were first asked about changes in their expenditure on energy and fuels in April 2022 in light of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Until the end of April 2023, between 83% and 88% of firms consistently reported an increase in expenditure over the past 12 months. In May and June 2023, the share of these firms declined and settled at a somewhat lower level between 73% and 78% from July 2023 onwards. Expectations for expenditure on energy and fuels over the next 12 months began to decline as early as October 2022 and reached their lowest point thus far in June 2023. At that point in time, only 49% of firms expected their expenditure on energy and fuels to rise further. Their share has grown again since then, fluctuating between 50% and 60% in the second and third quarters of 2023.
Q4 2023: Average change in prices charged for products and services

Following the peak of 10.6% in December 2022, the rate of price adjustments fell to 6.6% in the period up to November 2023 before stabilising at this level, at least for the time being. Expected changes in prices charged over the next 12 months followed the trend of past developments in these prices. They have fallen steadily from their peak in September 2022 (10.2%). Since October 2023, firms have been expecting their prices to increase between 5.2% and 5.3% on average.
Q4 2023: Changes in numbers of employees

Between Q4 2021 and Q2 2023, firms in Germany consistently reported slight increases in their numbers of employees over the preceding 12 months. With a slight decline of 0.3% on average in Q4 2023, firms reported a reduction in their numbers of employees for the first time.
Q4 2023: Uncertainty about the development of prices charged for products and services

The uncertainty among German firms regarding the development of the prices charged for their products and services that was first observed shortly after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine has remained elevated. The uncertainty peaked in September 2023, when 38.5% of firms responded that they were “uncertain”, “rather uncertain” or “neither certain nor uncertain” about how the prices they charged would develop over the next 12 months. Since then, this subjective price uncertainty has abated only marginally, most recently to 36.4% of firms. (The percentages shown are three-month moving averages).
Q3 2023: Expected gross annual salary of employees

In 2023 Q3, half of the firms reported that the average gross salary of their employees amounted to €43,000 or more. This corresponds to an increase in gross salary of 7.5% compared with 2022. The latest values were somewhat higher than the expectations for 2023 (€42,000) that firms reported in 2022.
According to the latest survey, a half of firms expected the gross annual salary of their employees to rise to €45,000 in 2024, which corresponds to 4.7-percentage increase compared to the current salary level.
Q3 2023: Importance of selected regions for firms’ international supply chains

In the third quarter of 2023, around 69% of firms reported that the EU had been of primary importance for their international supply chains over the past two years. After the EU, the next most important regions for international supply chains were China, which was considered important by 15% of firms, and non-EU European countries, which were considered important by 5% of firms. For the purposes of this question, it was irrelevant whether the products were purchased directly or indirectly (via intermediaries) from abroad.
Q3 2023: Measures taken or planned by firms to improve supply chain reliability

When asked about the measures they had taken or were planning to take to improve their supply chains in Q3 2023, 74% of firms reported that they were expanding their supplier network with additional suppliers. The second most common measure, cited by 63% of firms, was expanding storage capacity, followed by improving the monitoring of supply chains and replacing existing suppliers with new ones (59% each).
Q3 2023: Expected production cost developments due to supply chain changes

In the third quarter of 2023, at 45% each, equal proportions of firms expected supply chain changes to cause their production costs to either increase or remain the same, respectively. By contrast, 11% of firms expected their production costs to fall as a result of supply chain improvements.
Q2 2023: Use of the incentives under the European Commission’s Green Deal

In May 2023, 20% of German firms reported that they either had already used the incentives created by the European Green Deal to reduce CO₂ emissions or had planned to use them within the next three years. About 31% of firms had neither used these incentives in the past nor planned to do so in the future. A further 49% of firms had not yet made a decision on this issue.
Q2 2023: What obstacles do firms report on the path to reducing CO2?

Among firms that had already reduced their CO₂ emissions or planned to do so within the next three years, 51% said that the costs of the measures were the main obstacle when implementing the measures, while 9% of firms reported potential disruptions or even business process failures as the main obstacle. Only 4% of firms saw a lack of qualifications or support on the part of their employees as the main obstacle.
Q2 2023: Reduction of CO2 emissions in the corporate sector

In May 2023, half of German firms reported that they had already significantly reduced their CO₂ emissions, while another 23% planned to do so over a time horizon of up to three years. Meanwhile, 12% of firms reported no activity in this area and 16% of firms had not yet made a decision.
Q2 2023: Increased energy costs – pass-through to customers via sales prices

In May 2023, 72% of firms affected by rising energy costs reported having passed the increased costs on to their customers via higher prices. Of these, 30% of firms passed on less than 25% of the additional expenditure, 16% of firms passed on 25-50% and 25% reported that they had passed on more than 50% of their increased energy costs to their customers.
Q1 2023: Access to financing sources

Access to financing sources for firms in Germany has deteriorated slowly but steadily since February 2022 according to firms’ own assessment. In March 2023, 21.5% of firms reported that their access had decreased over the past 12 months, while only 6.6% reported an improvement. The net difference thus amounted to 14.9 percentage points, the highest since October 2022.
Q1 2023: Uncertainty about development of own prices

The three-month moving average shows shortly after the start of the Russian war in Ukraine an increase in uncertainty among German firms about how their own prices would develop. Since May 2022, the share of firms answering this question with “uncertain”, “rather uncertain” or “neither certain nor uncertain” has ranged between 32% and 34%.
Q1 2023: Increase in expenditure on energy and fuels

Since April 2022, a constant share of between 83% and 88% of firms have reported an increase in expenditure on energy and fuels over the past 12 months. Up to and including October 2022, between 87% and 91% of enterprises were expecting a further increase over the next 12 months. That share has fallen since November 2022, most recently to 65% in March 2023.
Q1 2023: Average change in sales prices

From the start of the survey mid 2021 up to September 2022, firms in Germany reported steadily increasing sales price inflation over each past 12-month period. Since October 2022, this price growth has stabilised in a corridor of between 10.2% and 11.2%. Expectations about the future development of firms’ sales prices followed the trend of past developments, again up until September 2022. After that, the expected growth rates of sales prices declined steadily until February 2023 and have stood at 7.1% since then.
Q4 2022: Expected sales developments over the next 12 months

Firms’ expectations regarding one-year-ahead sales growth deteriorated slowly but steadily over the period under review. While 75% of firms still anticipated an increase in sales at the end of 2021, this figure was only 64% at the end of 2022. The share of firms expecting a decline in sales at the end of 2021 was 20%, compared with 31% one year later.
Q4 2022: Interest rate risk in the corporate sector

In the fourth quarter of 2022, 62% of firms believed that rising lending rates would not pose a problem for them over the next six months, while 19% of firms anticipated them being a pressing problem.
More than half of firms (53%) reported that they did not have any outstanding bank loans in the fourth quarter of 2022. By contrast, 16% of firms had outstanding debt amounting to more than 30% of their total assets.

On average, for about 73% of the outstanding loans the interested rate was fixed for more than a year. 15% of the outstanding debt was subject to a variable interest rate, while 12% had a fixed interest rate for up to one year.
Q3 2022: Impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine

In the third quarter of 2022, 36% of enterprises expected a loss of sales in 2022 due to the Russian war on Ukraine. From a sectoral perspective, the wholesale and retail trade sectors in particular expected sales to decline.
Q3 2022: Change in the sales prices of enterprises in Germany

In September, enterprises’ sales prices rose by just under 11%. Enterprises expected their sales prices to rise in the near future by just under 11% as well.
Q3 2022: Increase in the minimum wage to €12 per hour from 1 October 2022

The minimum wage in Germany was increased from €10.45 to €12 per hour as of 1 October 2022. In the run-up to this increase, enterprises were asked about the proportion of their employees that earned an hourly wage of less than €12. Ultimately, it is the 30% of firms that paid at least one employee less than €12 per hour that should be directly affected by the increase in the minimum wage.

There are considerable regional differences in the impact of the minimum wage increase to €12 per hour as of 1 October 2022. While only 8.6% of enterprises in the south of Germany (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) have to pay more than 20% of their employees the higher minimum wage, 14.6% of enterprises in the eastern federal states (Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia) are required to do so.

Around 40% of enterprises expected an increase in total staff costs as a result of the increase in the minimum wage. The remaining 60% of enterprises expected staff costs to change only slightly or not at all. The impact of the minimum wage increase on the employment of low-skilled workers was initially assessed as minimal. The majority of enterprises (around 80%) expected that this would not significantly change the number of low-skilled workers or the number of hours that they worked. Although around 10% of enterprises expected a decline in this regard, nearly as many enterprises expected an increase in the employment of low-skilled workers.

No Page Title

Expectations for the use of artificial intelligence over the next five years