E-invoicing 39%, AI 18%: French small businesses open 2026-2027 with the invoice, not the assistant
The France Num Barometer 2026 (9,655 companies, published 17 September) shows 78% of small businesses have a digital project, but AI is the priority for only 18% of them.
Run by Crédoc for the Directorate-General for Enterprise among 9,655 companies surveyed from 23 March to 18 April 2026, the barometer finds that 78% of French small businesses have digital projects for 2026-2027. At the top: the e-invoicing reform (39%, +11 points), then software purchases (26%), training (21%), equipment (19%) and artificial intelligence (18%, −1 point). Meanwhile 33% made no digital spending at all over a year (+8 points) and 71% of owners say digital brings their business a real benefit (−7 points). For advice they turn first to their accountant (41%, +23 points).
For the head of a network of branches, the message is concrete: AI is not what fills their peers' agenda, and budgets are tight. Obligations come first. An assistant only has a chance if it relieves without creating a project: answering the questions that come back every day at the front desk (opening hours, documents to bring, mail pick-up) without the team having new software to learn.
For AppH
- AppH's reception assistant needs no overhaul: it relies on the information the branch has already published (prices, documents, opening hours) and hands over to the team for anything outside that scope.
- A person stays in control: the assistant commits neither the branch nor the client, and a sensitive outgoing message goes out only after a person at the branch approves it.
Against / the honest limit
- AppH does no invoicing and replaces no tool of the reform: if e-invoicing is your project of the year, a reception assistant does not move it forward. It can only free a little time alongside.
- These figures describe small businesses as a whole, not domiciliation companies, and declared projects are not purchases. The barometer says nothing about a branch network's appetite for an assistant: that is what a pilot has to show.
When AI comes after the invoice and a tight budget, the right answer is not to promise more: it is a small tool that plugs into what already exists, whose work you can see, and that stays under a person's control.
Reviewed by a human at AppH