Adoção de inteligência artificial em empresas portuguesas

: estudo de caso com Augusta Labs

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence is transforming the business world, demonstrating a high potential to generate significant value within organizations. However, barriers to its adoption and implementation remain persistent. In Portugal, these limitations are particularly evident, given the lower maturity of the AI ecosystem compared to other international contexts. In this scenario, the outsourcing of AI services, through specialized providers, emerges as a strategy capable of overcoming these challenges and driving value creation in companies. This master’s dissertation aims to address two research questions: (1) How does AI outsourcing contribute to value generation in companies? (2) Which AI technologies are adopted by Portuguese companies and in what organizational contexts are they implemented? To achieve this, a case study was conducted with Augusta Labs, a Portuguese startup specialized in AI solutions. Interviews were conducted with its co-founder, including both a semi-structured and a structured interview, as well as secondary data sources from the company. The study concludes that AI adoption in Portuguese companies is more common among large organizations with higher digital maturity, which integrate AI into their strategy. GenAI technologies, combined with NLP, are the most widely used, particularly to enhance human-machine interaction. AI outsourcing proves to be an effective solution for companies to overcome barriers to AI adoption, enabling them to reduce costs and accelerate the implementation of the technology.

Date of Award	2 Jul 2025
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Andrade (Supervisor)