If your peer does it, do you do it, too?

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Businesses everywhere are currently trying to figure out if and how to use AI to improve business processes. But because it is such a new technology, everybody seems to make things up as they go along. Some businesses are trying to be early adopters even though it may bring the risk of wasting significant investments, while others are trying to see what works and then jump on the bandwagon later. In this regard, I find a survey of 3,000 Italian firms by the Bank of Italy interesting to read.The survey was really an experiment in the psychology of business leaders with regard to both AI and robotics. The survey asked business executives about their beliefs on how many of their competitors had adopted robotics or AI. Interestingly, firms significantly underestimated how much their peers had adopted these technologies. About 93% of survey respondents underestimated peer adoption by 2.5 percentage points or more. On average, firms underestimated adoption rates by a quarter.Then the researchers asked the business leaders if and how they planned to adopt robotics and AI in the next two years, until 2027 (the survey was done in 2025). But half the respondents were told the true adoption rates of their peers (which obviously was often higher than respondents expected), while the other half was asked without knowing the true adoption rate.The interesting divergence here is that if business executives learned about the true adoption rate of robotics by their peers, they would become more likely to plan for investments in robotics themselves. A one percentage point underestimation of …