The AI expert left the cabinet chiefs with what they called “food for thought”: What could AI make possible in their portfolios that was previously too expensive or impossible? Which assumptions might no longer hold if cognitive work becomes dramatically cheaper? And how could policy promote positive outcomes while guarding against harmful ones?
AI could also help Europe accelerate the economic changes set out in Mario Draghi’s influential 2024 competitiveness report by speeding up experimentation, selection, scaling and diffusion of new ideas, the presentation said, with the expert pointing to slowing labor productivity, an aging population, weaker trade and the need to renew infrastructure as headwinds to growth. The goal is to extend the Draghi agenda from the factors of competitiveness to the speed of economic evolution, they said.
But useful applications will take time to develop. That means it must become easier for companies to experiment, grow and scale successful ideas, while ensuring Europe retains a share of the value created, rather than becoming dependent on a handful of outside providers for models, chips or computing power, both Snabe and the AI expert said.
The seminars are feeding into a broader Commission effort to turn that ambition into a plan. The Commission will until December undertake “deep work” mapping out how to use AI across different sectors. Snabe and his team will conduct sector analyses, consider pilot projects and examine the AI “tech stack” — models, chips and computing capacity — before drafting a policy package toward the end of the year. A final report and strategy should take shape in early 2027, and the team is due to examine the societal implications of the policies between January and March.
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said Snabe’s Sept. 4 seminar “focused on how Europe can accelerate the uptake of industrial AI.” He added that the special envoy “will deliver an evidence-based and forward-looking report on Industrial AI.”
The Commission’s evolving approach to AI comes as critics question whether it is keeping pace with the technology’s risks. Axel Voss, a German conservative lawmaker and von der Leyen ally, said the Commission had failed to adapt to rapid developments and was not enforcing the AI Act — the EU’s law governing the risks of the technology — effectively enough. He pointed to recent hacking incidents involving AI agents and called for rules on liability when AI causes harm.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, who chairs the Vatican’s commission on AI, urged European politicians and bishops to respond more clearly to warnings that frontier models could escape human control. Czerny said he had not yet used AI himself, but felt it was his “moral duty” to gain personal experience with the technology.
