Corporate AI Lab: How five SMEs build AI skills together
The gap is in smaller companies
Austria is ten percentage points above the EU average in AI use: 30 percent of companies with ten or more employees use AI. This figure is driven by large companies.
Small and medium-sized companies face the same questions as corporations, but with less time, less access to expertise and less room to experiment. At the same time, the most useful solutions rarely emerge in isolation.
This is exactly where the Corporate AI Lab comes in.
26%
of companies with 10 to 49 employees
68%
of companies with 250 or more employees
FFG Impact Innovation_Start 2026
The project in numbers
5 SMEs from different industries
5 phases from analysis to application
3 to 5 people per company, one of them from management
A clear structure to build competence
From analysis to application, in five phases
- Phase 1 · läuft
Baseline assessment
Where do the companies stand on AI? Interviews at management and department level reveal the key challenges — and where the most can be moved.
- Phase 2 · folgt
Analysis and ideation
Design thinking and root-cause analysis get to the bottom of the challenges. In exchange between the companies, ideas emerge that no single company would have had.
- Phase 3 · folgt
Joint format development
The companies help shape the lab format: content, methods and learning goals come from their real needs, not from a ready-made curriculum.
- Phase 4 · folgt
Testing
The modules run in half-day lab sessions and are refined after each round. Whatever doesn’t hold up in daily work is dropped.
- Phase 5 · folgt
Prototype lab and evaluation
The jointly developed format runs as a whole. The scientific team evaluates what worked and what didn’t.
The method
How the project works
Co-creation and design thinking
No lecturing, no ready-made slides. In workshops, practice and research sit at the same table and decide together what goes into the format.
Iterative approach
Develop, test, refine. Solutions become practical step by step, not only at the end. What doesn’t work gets changed.
Scientific evaluation
The project is scientifically evaluated, with a baseline survey before the first session and a final measurement at the end. The goal is a tested format that benefits other companies too.
Project results
What remains at the end
A tested lab format
A scientifically evaluated format that shows how SMEs build AI skills systematically. Developed with companies, not at a desk.
Proven methods and tools
Materials and approaches that were tested and refined in the sessions.
Findings on the SME landscape
Published findings on where SMEs get stuck when introducing AI — and which approaches work.
A network across industries
Five companies working together for months. The exchange doesn’t end with the last session.
First results
What the 2026 survey shows
Before the first lab starts, we asked how companies actually use AI today. AI has arrived, but mainly as a writing tool.
The most common problem isn’t a lack of knowledge about AI, but information scattered across many systems.
Practice is ahead of policy. In most companies, AI is used without a document or clear responsibility for it.
The project team
Klaus Lindinger
Managing Director CONQUEST / strategic lead. Initiator of the lab. Has guided the AI transition at Conquest since 2022 and brings this experience directly into the project.
Mag. Martina Otruba, MBA
Project coordination. Manages and coordinates all project phases.
Dr. Katharina Musil
Change management and research. Scientific design, interviews and evaluation.
Mag. Gisa Schosswohl
Funding, legal and networks. Project management towards the FFG, financial planning and links to the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO), clusters and associations.
Mag. Andreas Lovric
Innovation management. Facilitation of creative processes and collaboration across organizational boundaries.
Frequently asked questions
The Corporate AI Lab is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) as part of the Impact Innovation programme. www.ffg.at
Program:
FFG Impact Innovation / Application number: 65936869
Funding recipient:
CONQUEST Werbeagentur GmbH, Leonding
Project title:
Corporate AI_Lab
Project start:
2026
Learn more
Questions about the project? The team is happy to help at ai.lab@conquest.at.