Digital Maturity, Artificial Intelligence Adoption and Perceived Operational Productivity among Professionals from Seven Moroccan Banks

Abstract

This study examines associations between digital maturity, artificial intelligence adoption and perceived operational productivity among professionals from Moroccan banks. It distinguishes three questions: the direct association between adoption and perceived productivity, the independent contribution of maturity, and its moderating role. An indirect analysis is exploratory. This approach extends research on organizational AI capabilities while distinguishing financial performance from individual assessments of operations. The convenience-sampled survey, conducted from July to August 2026, comprises 120 respondents from seven banks, including executives, managers, IT, data or cybersecurity professionals, and customer-facing or commercial staff. Adoption and perceived benefits attributed to AI are measured with multi-item composite scores; maturity is represented by a self-assessed three-level category. Analyses include descriptive statistics, internal consistency assessment, factor analyses, correlations and regressions. Adoption is positively associated with perceived productivity (B = 0.512; p wild = 0.031). The joint model explains 35.1% of its variance. Neither the independent direct association of maturity nor the interaction is statistically significant. The complementary decomposition reports a statistical indirect effect of 0.232, with a 95% bootstrap interval [0.132, 0.351]. These findings are compatible with a relationship between available capabilities and reported uses; they do not establish a causal sequence. Common-source perceptions, the coarse maturity measure, responses nested within seven banks and unobserved confounders restrict interpretation. The cross-sectional design does not establish temporal ordering or support generalization to the Moroccan banking sector. The contribution is therefore an exploratory comparison of distinct statistical configurations that requires confirmation using better documented measures, independent outcomes and longitudinal data.

JEL classification: G21; O33; D24; M15.

Paper type: empirical research.