More IoT and Artificial Intelligence: European Businesses Poised for Growth

Digital transformation is both a promise and a challenge. What opportunities await EU enterprises? What hurdles lie ahead?

The adoption of digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving a significant paradigm shift in how businesses approach strategy, management, and organisational design. Companies now face a complex landscape—those that embrace digitalisation will thrive, while those that fall behind may not survive.

Uniquon, committed to bringing digital innovation to the core of business operations, has identified four key areas where European companies must focus their efforts in the short- to medium-term. Let us explore them together.

1. Expanding Innovative Products and Services

Uniquon’s experience reveals that approximately one-third of companies investing in digitalisation have successfully enhanced the sale of existing products and services—or expanded their overall portfolio. The development of innovative offerings not only responds to market needs but creates demand, expanding addressable markets.

According to leading economic analysts (MGI, HB, BCG), the global GDP could increase by as much as $6 trillion by 2030 as a direct result of AI-driven innovations in products and services.

2. Improving Productivity

AI and IoT technologies are fundamentally cost-effective, often replacing traditional production factors with more efficient systems. The AI challenge, however, extends beyond automation—it enables entirely new business models, which may displace legacy companies still anchored to conventional paradigms.

Importantly, this is not about replacing humans with machines, but rather empowering humans to do more through smarter tools. Capital investments in digitalisation yield compounding productivity gains over time, as these technologies continuously improve by learning from the data they process.

Uniquon strongly recommends that during the transition to AI, companies undertake organisational restructuring to reskill their workforce and hire new, specialised talent capable of stewarding this change.

3. Wealth Creation and Reinvestment

As AI drives greater productivity across the economy, increased output leads to efficiency gains that can be passed on in the form of higher wages for employees and increased profits for businesses. This creates a virtuous cycle: improved consumer spending, heightened reinvestment, and broader economic growth.

4. Growth in Global Digital Flows — and the Challenge of Security

AI is significantly boosting digital flows in two distinct ways.

First, it enables more efficient long-distance commerce. For instance, a third of digital traffic stems from cross-border e-commerce. Machine learning-based recommendation engines, which suggest personalised content to users, now drive 30–40% of sales for major e-commerce players. As a result, AI contributes directly to 5–10% of the value created through digital commerce data flows.

Second, AI expands non-commercial data flows, including:

• Improvements in global supply chains

• Generation of Big Data sets

• Remote monitoring platforms

• International clinical data exchanges

According to MGI, two-thirds of global digital flows originate from these broader applications, and AI is expected to influence 10–15% of this value, contributing up to 1% of global GDP by 2030.

However, Uniquon’s ongoing work with clients highlights a concerning trend: while digital investments are increasing, cybersecurity awareness often lags behind.

What we observe is that security concerns tend to mature only after technologies like AI are already in use—leaving companies vulnerable during a critical period. These gaps create significant business risk and open the door to sophisticated cyber threats that conventional security models are no longer equipped to handle.

The Uniquon Approach: Security by Design

While many enterprises are embracing innovation (though still not enough), the absence of robust security planning could result in severe operational damage and reputational loss.

At Uniquon, we believe the only viable approach is to design and implement digital solutions that are inherently secure. This approach demands greater effort, but only when security is built into the DNA of a technological system can it truly support sustainable growth and long-term innovation.