Adoption of Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence: A Panel Data Analysis of Sustainable Economic Performance in European Union Countries

The dual transition, green and digital, has become the strategic axis of the European Union, but quantitative evidence on the extent to which the adoption of digital technologies and artificial intelligence effectively supports the decoupling of economic growth from material consumption remains fragmented. Our study examines this relationship for the 27 Member States of the European Union over the period 2015–2024, using a balanced panel constructed entirely from verifiable official secondary data, without any interpolated values. The dependent variable is resource productivity, expressed as the ratio between gross domestic product and domestic material consumption. The results of the panel data analysis show that the variables are first-order integrated and cointegrated. The fixed-effects model indicates a positive and significant effect of digital adoption on resource productivity, with human capital being the most robust determinant, and research intensity also exerting a positive effect. An analysis of the recent series of AI adoption (2021, 2023, 2024) highlights a positive and significant association with resource productivity. The findings support the idea that digitalization and AI can be complementary to sustainability objectives, but not a substitute for investment in human capital and institutional quality. The study features a two-component architecture: a balanced panel (2015–2024) for digital adoption and an exploratory, repeated cross-sectional analysis for the recent series on artificial intelligence adoption.