The use of advanced technologies such as AI, blockchain, or IoT was considered marginal by the majority of municipalities and not a priority in strategic documents.
Cloud migration is the most widespread technological innovation adopted thanks to PNRR funding, but more disruptive technologies have not yet been systematically integrated.
The need to use advanced analytics tools to support decisions, however, appears to be a particularly divisive matter. It is considered "essential" by 43% of municipalities and "not relevant" by 47%.

APULIA Region
Small (<5.000 inhabitants), intermediate (5.000-15.000), medium (15.000-50.000), large municipalities (more than 50.000). Small municipalities are not considered due to the low number of respondents.
Results show that Technology is the least mature domain among those assessed in the DIGITS survey. Across municipalities in the Apulia Region, digital maturity remains predominantly low, with virtually no administrations reaching high maturity levels. The findings reveal a structural weakness in the adoption of advanced technologies, a pattern that is consistent across large, medium and intermediate municipalities.
The analysis indicates that technological innovation has not progressed at the same pace as other dimensions of digital transformation. While municipalities have made significant advances in areas such as governance, compliance and digital infrastructure, the integration of emerging technologies into administrative processes and service delivery remains limited.
Among the technologies considered, cloud computing is the most widely adopted solution, reflecting its role as a foundational enabler of digital transformation. In contrast, more advanced technologies—including Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics and Blockchain—show only limited diffusion across local administrations. This suggests that municipalities are still primarily focused on basic digitalization and organizational modernization rather than on leveraging innovative technologies to generate new public value.
The consistency of results across all municipality sizes highlights that the challenge is systemic rather than linked to organizational scale or available resources. Even larger municipalities, which generally perform better in other domains, do not display significantly higher levels of technological maturity.
Overall, the findings reveal a clear gap between the development of digital foundations and the adoption of advanced technological solutions. Bridging this gap will be essential to move from digitalization towards true digital innovation, enabling municipalities to enhance efficiency, improve decision-making and deliver more responsive and data-driven public services.
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MOLISE Region
Small (<1000 inhabitants), medium (1000-2500), larger municipalities (2500-8000). The 4 bigger cities are not considered in the analysis.
The Technology domain is the weakest area in the regional assessment. All municipalities are concentrated in the low band, with only very marginal differences by size: larger municipalities perform slightly better than medium and small ones, but the gap is minimal and does not change the overall picture of stagnation.
The region remains anchored to basic digitalisation rather than advanced technological transformation. Cloud computing appears to be the only relatively consolidated technology, while AI, IoT, Big Data, and Blockchain are in an initial adoption stage. Technology is still mainly used mainly for office automation and service hosting, not as a driver of innovation or intelligent service redesign.
Larger municipalities show the highest average score, but only by a very small margin, which confirms that they are not yet meaningfully ahead in this field. The New Technology theme is uniformly weak across the entire sample, with all municipalities in the low band. This indicates that emerging technologies are not yet embedded in public service delivery, decision support, or process redesign. The lack of variation also suggests that the region is at an early stage of technological maturity, with very limited experimentation beyond standard digital tools.
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The Technology domain shows the most critical weakness suggesting minimal adoption of advanced technologies, limited use of data-driven tools and a strong reliance on basic systems. This gap significantly constrains efficiency, innovation and the overall impact of digitalization efforts.
Institutions continue to rely primarily on basic digital solutions. Some initiatives lead to testing more advanced technologies such as IoT, Big data analytics and a few shows adoption of AI, but they remain insufficiently implemented. The findings point to limited technological innovation capacity and insufficient integration of modern digital tools into institutional operations.
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