Switzerland’s Billion Franc Opportunity: AI promises a significant boost to the economy

In this blog post, we present a summary of a recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) study and provide an overview of the key results for Switzerland.

Unlocking Europe’s AI Potential in the Digital Decade, a study conducted independently by Strand Partners on behalf of AWS, has revealed that Swiss businesses experienced a remarkable 36% increase in the adoption of AI in 2023 representing 30% growth since 2022. This surge in AI and digital technology adoption could unlock 127 billion Swiss francs for Switzerland’s economy by 2030.

However, to fully harness its digital capabilities and capitalize on the opportunities presented by this technology, Switzerland must address three critical issues: creating a pro-innovation environment; addressing the digital skills gap; and ensuring businesses of all sizes have access to the latest technologies.

Unlocking the Power of AI for All

The positive economic impact of AI as transformational technology on Swiss businesses is clear: three-quarters of firms that use AI report increased productivity as a result, and 83% realized cost savings. Furthermore, nearly every second Swiss business (42%) surveyed is currently using AI and machine learning (ML) in order to achieve their sustainability goals, such as through the optimization of business practices.

While AI and ML have been playing an important role for many companies for years, generative AI, in combination with the cloud, has expanded the possibilities. For example, product development time can be shortened and cost can be reduced. The possibilities are manifold, but Swiss businesses would benefit from greater flexibility in choice of an AI provider. 61% of Swiss businesses cite limited choice among AI providers as a barrier to their adoption of AI tools, a concern that is significantly higher than the 39% European average. This is why AWS is focused on democratizing access to generative AI and foundation models at all layers of the stack, including infrastructure and AI services. Preserving choice, especially in the emergent generative AI foundation model market is key for customers to select vendors aligned with their specific needs. Addressing this barrier to adoption can enable Switzerland to unlock economic benefits and help the country as a whole unlock its digital ambitions.

Within the AWS global cloud infrastructure, companies have the flexibility to choose the way they want to build with AI. For example, Stability AI and AI21 build their own AI models with purpose-built ML infrastructure. Clariant creates its own generative AI solutions with Amazon Bedrock, which provides easy access to a choice of high-performing foundation models and the option to customize those models for specific tasks. Or take the digital marketing platform Wunderkind, which uses the AI assistant Amazon Q to solve company-specific problems.

“Swiss companies acknowledge the unparalleled opportunity that AI presents for their growth and productivity, as well as its potential to tackle society’s most pressing challenges. To unlock the potential of AI, it is crucial for Switzerland to deliver the digital skills support and regulatory certainty, aligning with the ambitions of both citizens and businesses”, says Chris Keller, General Manager Europe Central.Overcoming barriers to growth

The majority of Swiss companies have a strong interest in using AI. Nevertheless, companies state that the introduction of the technology is being slowed down by a shortage of skilled workers, implementation costs, and unclear legal and regulatory framework.

The lack of digital skills is the most frequently cited challenge. Only a minority of businesses in Switzerland (18%) consider it straightforward to hire staff with good digital skills. Looking forward, Swiss businesses predict that digital skills will remain crucial, with 62% reporting that digital proficiency will overshadow university qualifications when hiring within five years. Addressing the digital skills gap is crucial to the democratization of AI technology. Therefore, AWS is investing in education initiatives, training programs, and start-up enablement programs to support Switzerland’s digital transformation and economic development plans. AWS also collaborates with leading universities to share knowledge and best practices and is awarding research grants to promote responsible AI use. Across EMEA, AWS has already trained over 900,000 people with digital skills and offers a range of training and certification programs, such as AWS re/Start which provides free-to-the-learner training to unemployed and underemployed individuals.

Positive change with AI

Despite businesses’ concerns regarding skills and regulations, nearly half of Swiss citizens (46 %) believe AI will be key in addressing societal challenges, such as climate change. They also think AI will positively transform industries in the next five years, most notably healthcare (58%), education (56%), and transportation (53%). On the other hand, public awareness of AI is lower in Switzerland than across Europe. 69% had heard of the technology before, compared to 73% of European citizens.

Businesses in Switzerland recognize the opportunity AI presents and demonstrate overall strong momentum in emerging digital technology, as they developed plans for AI adoption significantly more often (+10%) than the average European businesses . They also continue to accelerate cloud adoption as a foundation for a digitalized economy. 62% of Swiss businesses adopted cloud technology between two and four years ago with great results. For example, one of the world’s largest healthcare companies, Roche, uses AWS to examine health data at scale to accelerate drug discovery and development, or the Swiss-based NeuroPro, a digital health company, is using AWS technologies to improve the speed and accuracy in the diagnosis of brain diseases by providing physicians with access to the data and tools they need.

If this appetite for digital technology can be maintained, Swiss businesses using cloud technology could capitalize on the productivity and profitability benefits that AI users enjoy. To support the projected growth in demand and to give customers in Switzerland local access to the most advanced cloud technologies, AWS opened the Europe (Zurich) Region in 2022. AWS estimates that the Region will support over 2,500 full-time jobs at external vendors annually through investment of 5.9 billion Swiss francs, with an estimated economic impact on Switzerland’s GDP of 16.3 billion Swiss francs over the next 15 years.

In order to find out more about what’s needed to fuel Europe’s AI adoption boom, please read Unlocking Europe’s AI Potential in the Digital Decade . If you are interested to get in touch with an AWS expert to learn more about AWS AI services, please use the contact form. Successful companies utilize the AI opportunity now and empower their employees by providing them with essential AI tools to generate innovative ideas and implement first AI use-cases.