AI in the Irish Economy 2025

This report, produced by Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for Digital Business and Analytics in collaboration with Microsoft Ireland, explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is shaping Ireland’s economy and organisations in 2025. It provides both a snapshot of current adoption and an economic forecast of AI’s long-term impact.

Key Findings

1. Rapid AI Adoption

• In 2024, half of Irish organisations did not use AI; by 2025 this figure dropped to just 9%.

• Larger firms and multinationals are leading adoption, while SMEs and the public sector lag behind.

• Most businesses use AI through third-party software, though “AI-first” organisations (where AI is central to operations) are slowly increasing.

2. Shadow AI Culture

• Employees often use free or public AI tools even when official policies discourage them.

• 80% of managers acknowledge this reality, suggesting that management of AI use is more effective than outright bans.

3. Policy and Preparedness

• About half of organisations lack clear AI policies. Larger and multinational firms are better prepared than SMEs and public bodies.

• Public sector adoption remains weaker, particularly in decision-making processes.

4. Productivity and Perceptions

• 75% of organisations believe AI is useful, up from 65% in 2024.

• However, 50% report little to no productivity gains so far—AI is mostly delivering incremental improvements rather than major transformation.

• AI is increasingly linked to sustainability goals, with 71% of firms expecting it to support environmental strategies.

5. Training and Workforce

• Talent shortages remain, but recruitment of AI-trained staff is slowly improving.

• Multinationals report stronger confidence in employee adaptability than smaller Irish firms.

6. Regulation and Ethics

• Over half of organisations see regulation as a barrier, particularly SMEs.

• Only half of managers believe their organisation takes a responsible approach to AI ethics and security, signalling risks around trust and governance.

Economic Impact of AI

• AI could add at least €250 billion to the Irish economy over the next decade.

• With supportive policies, this figure could rise by another €60 billion by 2035.

• Per capita GDP could be 42% higher with widespread AI adoption and strong policy support compared to a no-AI scenario.

• Ireland’s GNI per capita could increase by up to €30,000 per person by 2035 with broad AI integration.

Conclusion

Ireland has made rapid progress in AI adoption, but gaps remain—especially for SMEs and the public sector. With the right policies, investment, and training, AI could transform productivity, sustainability, and economic growth. However, without clear strategies and ethical safeguards, adoption risks being uneven and limited in impact.

Generate a Short Question Exam using AI:

You can use AI to generate short, but focussed revision exams for yourself. Copy and paste the following prompt into ChatGPT (or any other AI you prefer):

I need ten questions based on the notes I've given you. These questions must have one or two-sentence answers only. I will do the test, then you will grade it, allocating ten marks to each question. Grade each of my answers out of ten, then give me an overall percentage, and advise me on how I might improve my answers please.

Then paste into the chat a link to the relevant page of my notes, and send;

Or

If you wish to revise a specific section of my notes, copy-and-paste the section of notes into a Word doc, then convert it to a PDF and attach that to your chat;

Or

If the section of notes you wish to revise is less than 1,500 words, copy them directly into a chat and add your prompt (although you won't be able to add diagrams if you use this method).

Repeat the process as often as you wish, and, if you use the same conversation AI will give you a different set of questions each time. 

By using this method, you can very effectively study a large amount of information in a short space of time.

Using AI to test yourself on my notes

It is now possible to use AI to test yourself on almost any topic. Follow these simple steps to generate a set of useful questions, then have them corrected by AI:

1. Copy the set of notes you wish to revise, then paste them into a Word document.
2. Convert this Word doc to a PDF and download it to your device.
3. Open ChatGPT and type the following prompt: I need twenty short questions on this material for a teacher who asks quite difficult questions. Then attach the PDF you just created to your conversation. ChatGPT will now produce a set of questions for you to answer.
4. Open a second Word document and answer the questions given to you by ChatGPT.
5. When you're finished, convert your answer-document into a PDF and again download this to your device.
6. Using the same conversation in ChatGPT, type in the following prompt: Correct the answers I've given to this test, awarding each correct answer ten marks, and give me a percentage grade. Also, explain in detail the questions I got wrong. Remember to attach your answer-PDF to the conversation.

ChatGPT will then grade your work and provide any feedback you need.

You can use the same PDF'd notes to generate a series of multiple-choice questions, true or false questions, even short response questions.

In a matter of hours, you could reasonably have AI assess your knowledge of an entire course.

Artificial Intelligence

The key to effective use of AI is your prompt. If you wish to use AI to simplify my notes, I recommend something like the following:

Simplify these notes for a fifteen year old boy/girl studying Economics in Ireland, (then attach the link to the appropriate page of my notes).

This will work with any of the AI's, but I suggest you try ChatGPT and see how it works for you. If the summary is too simple, or too difficult, simply change the age parameter in your prompt.