One new Swiss company in thirty-six now claims AI

Every Swiss company has a registered purpose: a sentence that describes what the company legally exists to do. For an AG or a GmbH, that purpose is part of the articles of association. Changing it requires a notarised amendment and a public filing with the commercial register. By August 2026, 3,310 Swiss companies had included artificial intelligence in their purpose.

Prospex holds every Swiss commercial-register publication since August 2018, including all incorporations, 137,637 dated purpose amendments and 88,872 company renames. We used this history to measure when AI claims began to rise, where they are concentrated, how often established companies added them later and whether companies making these claims close sooner.

In 2026 so far, 2.80% of all new Swiss companies claim AI in their purpose: one in every 36 incorporations. In the peak quarter, 2026Q2, it was 2.97%.

Table view

AI share of new incorporations, by quarter (extended net)

Quarter	Incorporations	AI	Share	95% interval
2018Q4	7'569	21	0.28%	0.18–0.42%
2019Q1	8'056	13	0.16%	0.09–0.28%
2019Q2	7'900	29	0.37%	0.26–0.53%
2019Q3	6'895	23	0.33%	0.22–0.50%
2019Q4	8'285	20	0.24%	0.16–0.37%
2020Q1	8'456	22	0.26%	0.17–0.39%
2020Q2	8'059	18	0.22%	0.14–0.35%
2020Q3	8'427	24	0.28%	0.19–0.42%
2020Q4	9'798	32	0.33%	0.23–0.46%
2021Q1	10'236	33	0.32%	0.23–0.45%
2021Q2	10'334	31	0.30%	0.21–0.43%
2021Q3	8'573	23	0.27%	0.18–0.40%
2021Q4	9'997	41	0.41%	0.30–0.56%
2022Q1	10'462	22	0.21%	0.14–0.32%
2022Q2	10'466	31	0.30%	0.21–0.42%
2022Q3	9'119	32	0.35%	0.25–0.49%
2022Q4	10'521	33	0.31%	0.22–0.44%
2023Q1	11'560	34	0.29%	0.21–0.41%
2023Q2	10'816	53	0.49%	0.37–0.64%
2023Q3	9'768	63	0.64%	0.50–0.82%
2023Q4	11'090	73	0.66%	0.52–0.83%
2024Q1	11'981	82	0.68%	0.55–0.85%
2024Q2	11'805	83	0.70%	0.57–0.87%
2024Q3	10'524	110	1.05%	0.87–1.26%
2024Q4	12'058	110	0.91%	0.76–1.10%
2025Q1	12'682	142	1.12%	0.95–1.32%
2025Q2	12'355	199	1.61%	1.40–1.85%
2025Q3	11'817	215	1.82%	1.59–2.08%
2025Q4	13'315	261	1.96%	1.74–2.21%
2026Q1	13'947	316	2.27%	2.03–2.53%
2026Q2	12'880	383	2.97%	2.69–3.28%

AI claims rose sharply after ChatGPT

From 2019 through the third quarter of 2022, the AI share of new Swiss incorporations stayed between 0.2% and 0.4%, averaging 0.292% over the period. From 2023 through mid-2026, it averaged 1.275% and continued to climb. The share increased 4.4× under every keyword definition we tested. Both the number of AI companies and the total number of companies come from the same incorporation records, so the rise reflects a larger share of new companies claiming AI.

The chart groups each company by its incorporation date. A company founded in 2019 that added AI to its purpose in 2024 therefore appears in the 2019 figures. Using the date of the purpose amendment produces a 9.1× increase in monthly AI claims after ChatGPT's release. The increase is 6.3× when companies are grouped by incorporation date.

Where companies claim AI

Zurich has the most AI claimants: 691 companies, ahead of Zug (422) and Vaud (329). Raw totals largely reflect how many companies are incorporated in each canton. Comparing the share of incorporations that claim AI gives a clearer picture. Across Switzerland, the rate is 8.83 per 1,000 companies.

Table view

AI incorporation rate by canton, relative to the national rate

Canton	AI	Incorporations	Ratio	95% interval
ZG	422	20'579	2.32×	2.11–2.56
TI	194	15'316	1.44×	1.24–1.65
ZH	691	58'932	1.33×	1.23–1.43
SZ	114	9'824	1.31×	1.08–1.58
BS	89	8'286	1.22×	0.98–1.50
VD	329	31'319	1.19×	1.07–1.33
NW	20	2'041	1.11×	0.68–1.71
GE	255	26'359	1.10×	0.97–1.24
AR	17	2'119	0.91×	0.53–1.46
SH	19	2'566	0.84×	0.51–1.31
JU	18	2'498	0.82×	0.48–1.29
AI	6	859	0.79×	0.29–1.72
LU	93	14'883	0.71×	0.57–0.87
NE	34	5'852	0.66×	0.46–0.92
UR	5	903	0.63×	0.20–1.46
SO	44	8'037	0.62×	0.45–0.83
SG	92	17'127	0.61×	0.49–0.75
GL	7	1'322	0.60×	0.24–1.24
BL	44	8'353	0.60×	0.43–0.80
VS	80	15'798	0.57×	0.45–0.71
GR	34	7'294	0.53×	0.37–0.74
AG	93	20'515	0.51×	0.41–0.63
FR	51	11'588	0.50×	0.37–0.66
BE	117	26'937	0.49×	0.41–0.59
TG	40	9'424	0.48×	0.34–0.65
OW	6	1'423	0.48×	0.18–1.04

Zug's rate is 2.32× the national rate (95% interval 2.11–2.56). It is the only outlier that remains under every keyword definition and denominator we tested. Ticino follows at 1.44×, Zurich at 1.33× and Schwyz at 1.31×. Zug and Schwyz are popular company domiciles for tax reasons. That popularity may help explain their high rates. For most other cantons, the intervals cross 1.0, so their rates are statistically consistent with the national rate. The same register data can compare cantons on measures such as capital raised in the last twelve months.

Many established companies added AI later

Of the 3,310 current claimants, at least 603 (18.2%) began with a different purpose and added AI later. This is a minimum because our register feed begins in August 2018. A company that changed its purpose in 2016 appears as though it had claimed AI from the start.

Claimed AI from the start 2,707 · 81.8% Added AI later 603 · 18.2%

These changes usually happened well after incorporation. Among the companies whose founding and amendment both appear in the feed, the median gap was 2.2 years. Only 8 of 334 added AI within their first month. After ChatGPT, AI additions rose 5.9× as a share of all purpose amendments. The corresponding increase among new incorporations was 4.4×.

Some companies later removed the claim. Of the 51 companies that once had an AI purpose and no longer do, 27 removed it through a later purpose amendment. Most of those companies remain active.

Company names are easier to change

Since August 2018, 63 Swiss companies have adopted an AI-related name and 24 have dropped one. After ChatGPT, the share of renames that added an AI term rose 5.9×. Over the same period, the overall rate of company renames stayed level and the absolute number fell.

Ten of the 63 companies changed their names before ChatGPT, including six that adopted a .ai domain as their legal name (hestia.ai, viso.ai, ariadne.ai). The Zug company Zephyre AG, for example, became G-20 Artificial Intelligence AG in October 2018 and G-20 Digital AG in July 2021. It adopted an explicit AI identity four years before ChatGPT launched and dropped it a year and a half before the launch.

Of the 63 companies that adopted an AI-related name, 33 signalled AI through their name and kept their existing legal purpose.

We reviewed company names by hand because simple text matching creates false positives. Rempfler AI AG is a roofing company in Appenzell Innerrhoden, whose canton abbreviation is AI. AI-Free Certification AG refers to AI because it certifies its absence.

Who makes the claim

Compared with peers matched on founding year and canton, AI claimants are more likely to be a GmbH or AG. GmbHs account for 48.5% of AI claimants and 43.4% of their peers. AGs account for 27.9% and 23.0%, respectively. Sole proprietorships make up 18.0% of AI claimants and 28.3% of peers, a 10.3-point gap for the least expensive legal form.

Within each legal form, median paid-in capital is CHF 20,000 for both AI claimants and matched peers. Their capital distributions are statistically similar.

Do they survive?

AI claimants survive at about the same rate as comparable companies. Each claimant was matched with five controls from the same founding year, canton and legal form. The hazard ratio for company closure is 0.98, with a 95% interval of 0.79–1.21. Three-year survival is 94.6% for AI claimants and 94.4% for the control group.

The data has limits. We observed 654 closures over a median follow-up of three years, which is too little to detect differences smaller than roughly 20% in either direction.

Company purposes and trademarks capture different groups

AI-related trademark filings rose from 288 in 2022 to 924 in the first eight months of 2026, with 3,634 filings in total. The overlap with commercial-register purposes is small. Of the 941 Swiss companies that own an AI trademark, 110 (11.7%) also claim AI in their purpose. Those 110 also make up only a small share of all purpose claimants. Counts from the two registers therefore cover different groups of Swiss AI companies. Prospex tracks new filings on its page for the newest Swiss trademark filings.

How this was measured

The analysis covers every company in the Swiss commercial register, using the SHAB publication feed from 29 August 2018 to 31 August 2026. We treat incorporations, purpose amendments and renames as dated events. A company counts as an AI claimant when its current legal purpose contains one of our AI terms in German, French, Italian or English.

Keyword lists used in published counts of "Swiss AI companies" miss 15.7% of the claimants, almost all of them in German. They overlook hyphenated compounds such as KI-gestützt and KI-basiert. A search limited to spelled-out terms undercounts German-speaking cantons by a quarter and makes French-speaking cantons appear more prominent. Our broader search finds 3,310 companies. Repeating the analysis with narrower keyword sets produces the same overall results.

Prospex maintains this event history for every Swiss company, recording what the register published, when it appeared and what changed. The same data can answer commercial questions, including how big the Swiss B2B market really is and sizing a target market from public data. You can also watch a list of companies and see when one of them changes.