Embracing digital technologies is crucial for a competitive, innovative and resilient enterprise base. Businesses can harness digital technologies in many ways – including to better understand their customers, reduce their costs and improve their products.
The benefits of digitalisation for enterprise include helping businesses remain competitive, keeping pace with technological developments, making business processes and procedure more efficient, cost savings, improving customer service, accessing new customers and markets, enhanced data security, and future proofing.
Digital strategy
The Programme for Government commits to leveraging the digital and AI revolution to deliver modern, effective public services and drive economic growth. As part of this, the National Digital and AI Strategy will be updated to integrate digital policy and regulatory responsibilities under a unified vision.
Ireland’s current National Digital Strategy, Harnessing Digital, was published in February 2022. It aligns with the EU’s Digital Decade 2030 Programme and focuses on four key pillars: enterprise, infrastructure, skills and public services. It also supports a coherent and future-ready digital regulatory framework, reflecting Ireland’s central role in European digital regulation.
Spanning departments and agencies, the strategy outlines priorities ranging from enterprise adoption and workforce skills to infrastructure development and ethical AI deployment in public services.
The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment leads the enterprise dimension of the strategy, aiming to build a robust digital ecosystem for SMEs and enhance Ireland’s digital competitiveness. Key goals include:
- supporting SMEs through grants and assistance
- achieving 90% basic digital intensity among SMEs by 2030
- reaching 75% enterprise adoption of cloud, AI and big data by 2030
Initiatives such as the Grow Digital portal and the Digital Transition Fund are central to achieving these targets.
The updated strategy, to be developed throughout 2025, will set out Ireland’s vision for digital and AI across government. It will maintain alignment with EU Digital Decade targets while introducing more ambitious national goals, particularly with a strong emphasis on AI and to ensure continued growth and investment in the years ahead.
Digital Decade Policy Programme
The Digital Decade Policy Programme is a comprehensive EU-wide framework to guide EU-level and member state policies on digital in line with European values of fairness, equality, freedom and protection, as set out in the European Declaration on Rights and Principles.
Supports and initiatives
Grow Digital
Grow Digital is a digital toolkit to help businesses (particularly microenterprises and SMEs) to assess their digital readiness and identify recommendations and supports to take the next step towards digital transformation, including training, resources and funding options.
Charter for Digital Inclusion
The Charter for Digital Inclusion aims to support public and private organisations to join efforts in ensuring equitable access to the use of digital technologies, services and associated opportunities for everyone.
Digital Transition Fund
The Digital Transition Fund (funded under Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP)) is a €58 million fund running until 2026 to help companies at all stages of their digital journey by providing direct supports to enterprise for digitalisation.
European Digital Innovation Hubs
European Digital Innovation Hubs are supporting digital transformation in SMEs and public sector organisations by encouraging the adoption of the latest advances in the three key technologies of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of a suite of digital technologies which will play a major role in shaping global competitiveness and productivity over the coming decades. There is a big opportunity for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors to reap a productivity dividend from AI (as well as other digital technologies).
Digital Services Act
The Digital Services Act sets out harmonised rules for a safe, predictable and trusted online environment.
Enterprise Digital Advisory Forum
The Enterprise Digital Advisory Forum was established to support the government in driving the digitalisation of enterprise across Ireland.