Swiss Executives Anticipate AI Investment Surge

2026-03-05 - 04:03

In Switzerland, firms are bullish about the prospects of artificial intelligence (AI) for improving efficiencies and driving innovation. A new study by the IBM Institute for Business Value, in collaboration with Oxford Economics, found that planned AI investments will increase over the next four years. The survey, which polled more than 2,000 executives, including 40 from Switzerland and 100 from Germany, in H2 2025, revealed that 73% of Swiss respondents expect AI to make a significant contribution to their revenue by 2030. German respondents were even more optimistic, with 81% sharing the same expectation. These figures represent a sharp rise from the current situation, where 30% of Swiss and 43% of German executives say AI already drives revenue at their organization. Both Swiss and German leaders believe that AI will become critical driver of business growth by 2030. Accordingly, Swiss executives expect that AI investment will surge by approximatively 156%, compared with 148 % for their German counterparts. Today, 45% of AI spending in German and Swiss organizations focuses on efficiency improvements. By 2030, Swiss executives anticipate that 63% of AI spending will be dedicated to product and service and business model innovation, on par with German executives at 62%. This shift underscores a move towards new revenue streams and opportunities, and beyond mere operational efficiency. Finally, 55% of the Swiss and 61% of the German executives surveyed believe that competitive advantages in 2030 will be achieved more through innovation than through resource optimization. Despite enthusiasm, AI adoption in the financial services industry remains largely at the early stage. A 2025 survey by Swiss Fintech Innovations and Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences polled 24 institutions in Switzerland and revealed that only 17% had reached the deployment phase while an even smaller proportion, 11%, were at the scaling phase. Most institutions (40%) were still at the ideation and small pilot phase. Quantum technology outlook Looking ahead to 2030, a majority of executives anticipate that quantum technology will profoundly affect their industries. 68% of the German and 63% of the Swiss respondents surveyed by IBM expect quantum-based AI to transform their sectors. Banking, in particular, is projected to experience a pronounced transformation driven by quantum computing. According to the study, banking executives are 113% more likely than executives in other industries to expect quantum to deliver business value for their enterprise by 2030. Leading institutions are already exploring quantum solutions, with HSBC, for example, conducting a proof-of-concept experiment that combined quantum and classical computing resources for trade predictions. The experiment showed promising results, achieving as much as a 34% improvement in predicting how likely a trade would be filled at a quoted price, compared to common classical techniques used in the industry. Despite the optimism, only 30% of German and 23% of Swiss executives expect to be using quantum computing by then. This underscores a gap between expectations and near-term adoption. Quantum technology promises use cases beyond the capabilities of today’s most powerful high‐performance computers, pushing past current computational limits, including those of AI. However, realizing this potential will require building flexible operations, robust infrastructure, and partnerships with quantum research institutions and technology providers. It will also require developing talent pipelines that emphasize both classical and quantum approaches to problem-solving. Security considerations are also paramount as quantum computers introduce new risks and threatens to break widely used cryptography methods such as RSA and ECC. Threat actors are already using “harvest now, decrypt later” tactics, stealing encrypted data today to potentially unlock once quantum capabilities mature. A recent study by Entrust and Ponemon Institute polled more than 4,000 IT practitioners and revealed that only 38% of organizations are actively preparing for the quantum threat. In particular, organizations across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, also referred to as the DACH region, lead preparedness at 45%, surpassing the US at 40%. This reflects stricter privacy laws in Europe, creating added urgency to attain quantum resistance. Is your organization preparing for