The IT Sector in Italy: 2025 Highlights & What’s Coming in 2026
THE ICT MARKET IN ITALY 2025: +4.5% GROWTH WITH PERSISTENT DISPARITIES
Italy’s digital economy is growing 10 times faster than its GDP, but it’s not growing evenly.
Behind headlines of billions invested in cloud, cybersecurity and AI, there’s a country that is rapidly splitting in two: on one side, large enterprises racing ahead with automation and advanced analytics; on the other, a vast universe of SMEs still stuck between Excel sheets and legacy software.
📈 2025 Highlights: Key Growth Drivers in 2025
The Italian IT sector in 2025 confirms sustained growth, with companies continuing to invest in digitalization despite global uncertainties. However, significant gaps remain between large enterprises and SMEs, particularly in AI adoption.
According to Assintel and Gartner, the Information Technology segment in Italy led with 9.2% growth, driven by cloud computing, cybersecurity, and hybrid work solutions.
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Cloud and IaaS (+16-20%): multi-cloud, sovereign cloud, AI-ready workloads - accelerated migration to cloud-native architectures, with focus on multi-cloud and hybrid solutions
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Cybersecurity (+7.2%): increased attacks and new EU regulations (NIS2) drove significant security investments
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SaaS platforms (+9%): continued growth in cloud-based ERP, CRM, and collaboration tools
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IT Services (+8.1%): consulting, integration, managed services, - steady growth
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Hardware (-2.3%): decline continues as companies shift to as-a-service models
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AI (+35%): still the fastest-growing digital segment.
🤖 2026 Expectations: AI Take Center Stage
In 2025, the broad Digital Economy in Italy is moving toward €84–85B (+3.8%) while the specific ICT Business market reached ~ €70.1 billion, recording 5.2% growth compared to 2024, exceeding initial forecasts.
In 2026, the broad Digital Economy in Italy is expected to reach approximately €88–90 billion (assuming a moderate growth rate of +4-6%), while the ICT Italian Market is projected to grow to around €73–75 billion, reflecting a similarly positive trend as in 2025 (+5-6%).
Concerning AI, IDC's “Worldwide AI and Generative AI Spending Guide” forecasts global AI spending will reach $632 billion by 2028 and forecasts for 2026 indicate further global acceleration for AI with ~ 25-30% growth.
In Italy, 37% of Italian companies plan significant AI and Machine Learning investments in 2026, up dramatically from just 7% in 2023 and 8.2% of 2025.
Key drivers for 2025 include generative AI at scale adoption, intelligent automation combining RPA with AI, edge computing and IoT integration, digital sustainability initiatives, and new European regulations (AI Act, Data Act).
⚠️ Two Critical Challenges Holding Back Italian Growth
THE WIDENING DIGITAL DIVIDE
Large enterprises (>500 employees) account for over 53% of total IT business spending in Italy, while 91% of large enterprises increased IT investments in 2025, the SME landscape tells a different story.
Only 42.3% of medium-sized companies invested significantly in IT, dropping to 23.1% for small businesses and just 11.2% for micro-enterprises.
More concerning: 180,000 Italian companies (3,6%%) remain in "digital poverty," lacking adequate management systems and relying on spreadsheets or obsolete software.
Main barriers: low awareness of benefits (38.7%), lack of internal skills (35.2%), perception of high costs (29.8%), and organizational resistance (24.5%).
This creates a two-speed market where large companies leverage AI and advanced analytics while SMEs – 99.9% of Italian businesses – risk falling further behind.
LAGGING AI ADOPTION
Despite global AI hype, for ISTAT only 8.2% of Italian companies have implemented AI solutions by end of 2024. This places Italy significantly behind Germany (28%), UK (31%), and France (23%).
Italy will contribute only 0.8% to global AI spending this year ($632 billion total), well below its ~2% share of global GDP.
Current AI applications focus mainly on customer service automation (38%), predictive analysis (27%), and fraud detection (19%). High-impact areas like supply chain optimization and predictive maintenance remain underutilized.
Key obstacles: lack of structured data (41%), shortage of AI specialists (38%), compliance concerns (32%), and unclear ROI (28%).
✨ Conclusion
The Italian IT sector closes 2025 with strong results and faces a potentially transformative 2026, especially in AI. However, success depends on bridging the gap between digitally mature large enterprises and lagging SMEs.
For IT sector operators in Italy, 2026 presents significant opportunities: double-digit market growth, surging demand for AI, automation and cloud solutions, and a large pool of SMEs yet to digitalize. Success will require combining technological excellence with consultative approaches to convey the real value of the newest IT solutions while choosing flexible delivery models that can suit the needs of the diversified Italian scene made of Large, Small and Micro enterprises.
We specialize in integrating AI and automations into existing business systems, helping Italian companies close the competitive gap. We start with prior assesment, concrete use cases and measurable ROI, then scale progressively.
📩 Reach out to us at info@itvaluepartner.eu or call +39 02 3826 5204 to discover how our approach fits your needs best.