Key competences for the adoption of AI-based innovations in organizations

Successfully adopting AI and realizing its full innovation potential requires different competences within a company. We identified five clusters, namely AI decision-making, AI utilization, AI basic, AI development, and leadership & moderation competences, as the basis for our AI competence framework, combining 35 individual competences. Based on a quantitative survey of 215 companies, we determined the importance of these competences for the successful adoption of AI innovations and their current availability within companies. According to our findings, AI basic competences play a particularly critical role compared to the other competence clusters, which are considered important but comparatively rarely available. Furthermore, our analyses show that, in contrast to companies with lower AI innovation capabilities, pioneering companies have higher levels of basic, development, and utilization competences. Our findings thus enrich the theoretical discourse on competences for organizational adoption of AI innovations and guide practitioners in taking action to develop the necessary competences.