Cloud adoption in German companies has increased significantly. Currently, 74% of organizations rely extensively or entirely on cloud infrastructures, representing an increase of 13 percentage points compared to 2023. Despite this positive development, Germany continues to lag in the EMEA comparison (Europe, Middle East, Africa) behind. While a quarter of companies across Europe have already fully migrated their infrastructure to the cloud, this figure stands at only 14% in Germany.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the central driver for cloud investments. For 67% of surveyed executives in Germany, the capabilities of agentic AI are now a decisive criterion when selecting their cloud providers. However, the study reveals a discrepancy between aspiration and reality: only 7% of German companies have already implemented or scaled agentic AI, while the EMEA average stands at 29%.
A significant barrier to AI readiness is the shortage of skilled professionals. Less than half of German decision-makers (48%) are confident that their workforce possesses the necessary competencies to deploy AI profitably. In the rest of the EMEA region, this figure stands at 80%.
As systems mature, the focus is shifting from pure migration to optimization. Multi-cloud has become the standard with a utilization rate of 69%. However, this diversity leads to new challenges:
In this context, national and sovereign cloud models are gaining importance, although they remain underrepresented in Germany.
Despite economic pressure, 84% of companies plan to increase their cloud budgets. More than half of investments (54%) will primarily flow into AI and machine learning.
There is a clear need to catch up in financial management of cloud resources. Only 11% of German companies use comprehensive FinOps practices for consistent cost optimization across multiple providers. The EMEA average is nearly three times higher at 31%. Additionally, one in five German companies states that they have no plans for any FinOps activities to date.
The results of the “PwC Cloud Business Survey 2025” are based on a survey conducted between July and September 2025. A total of 1,415 executives from the EMEA region participated, of which 110 participants were from Germany. The German sample consists of 63% technical and 37% commercial decision-makers, with the industrial and pharmaceutical sectors being most strongly represented.
Do you want to reduce IT costs and increase your company’s economic efficiency? We are happy to advise you.
