Poland Ranks 4th in Regional AI Readiness Index, But Business Adoption Lags

Poland placed fourth in the first edition of the CEE AI Index 2026, a ranking measuring the readiness of eleven Central and Eastern European countries to develop and deploy artificial intelligence. Only Estonia, Slovenia and Lithuania ranked higher, and the report's authors note that while Poland has the largest resource base in the region, it has struggled to fully translate that into business implementation.

What the ranking shows

The CEE AI Index 2026 was created at the initiative of the AI Chamber as the first report of its kind to assess the region's readiness for artificial intelligence in such detail. The authors analyzed 33 indicators and 363 data points across eleven countries, building the assessment around three pillars: Environment, covering regulation and infrastructure; Resources, covering talent and funding; and Implementation, covering actual AI adoption in business and academia.

The podium belongs to Estonia, Slovenia and Lithuania. Poland, with a score of 56.17 out of 100 possible points, took fourth place, just short of the podium. In the Environment pillar alone, Poland performed best in the region after Estonia, taking second place, while in the Implementation pillar it shares the lead with Czechia on the depth of AI use by enterprises.

Strengths that don't translate into results

The report's authors point to scale as Poland's main asset. The country has the largest HPC computing capacity in the region, produces the most AI-related scientific publications, and hosts the largest community of AI specialists in Central and Eastern Europe. Poland also ranks third in the European Union for open data maturity.

Even so, the Resources pillar, which covers talent and funding, came out weakest of the three areas assessed, scoring 49 points. The report attributes this gap to the absence of mechanisms that would translate the country's talent and research potential into concrete implementations across the economy.

Central and Eastern Europe has spent years building the foundations needed for the development of artificial intelligence - Tomasz Snażyk, CEO of AI Chamber

The CEE region has some of the strongest AI talent in Europe - Mark Boris Andrijanič, former Slovenian Minister for Digital Transformation

Weak points to fix

Among the areas flagged for improvement, the report cites gaps in testing environments for new AI solutions, poor integration of artificial intelligence into education curricula, and insufficient development of academic spin-outs, companies built on university research. It also points to inefficiencies in public innovation funding, which lags behind the potential suggested by the scale of Poland's economy and workforce.

Andrijanič notes that in the regional race for AI leadership, the sheer size of an economy matters less and less, while the quality of institutions and the coherence of development strategy matter more. That suggests Poland, despite its scale advantage over smaller neighbors, could keep losing ground to countries that have better organized their regulatory and investment environment.

What it means for Polish businesses

For Polish entrepreneurs, the report's data paints an ambiguous picture. On one hand, 80 percent of companies say they will increase their AI tool budgets over the next two years, and investment already reached 1.8 billion zloty in 2024 alone. On the other hand, Poland's position in the Implementation pillar, while relatively strong compared with the region, still isn't enough to overtake the ranking's leaders.

The government's Artificial Intelligence Fund, worth about 1 billion zloty and announced in November 2024, is meant to partly address these gaps by financing research and implementation projects. But the CEE AI Index authors suggest that without better conditions for regulatory sandboxes and stronger links between academia and business, sheer scale of resources won't be enough for Poland to climb onto the regional podium in future editions of the ranking.