The EU’s Adoption Bet: Breaking Down Brussels’ Apply AI Strategy

Fewer than 14% of businesses in the EU use artificial intelligence (AI). The European Commission hopes to change that with its new Apply AI Strategy, which mobilizes €1 billion to encourage AI adoption across the bloc. Released in October, the plan aims to boost AI integration in strategic sectors, bolster competitiveness, and improve governance.

The strategy has three core sections. The first establishes sectoral “flagships”, a group of initiatives to expand AI use in the public sector and 10 private economic sectors: health care (including pharmaceuticals); robotics; manufacturing, engineering, and construction; defense, security, and space; mobility, transport, and automotive; electronic communications; energy; climate and environment; agri-food; and cultural and creative sectors and media. The Commission plans more than 50 sectoral actions under this framework, including launching an AI drug discovery challenge, funding the development and integration of AI-based cybersecurity tools, and deploying a European AI factory to train models for defense and space applications.

The second section addresses challenges to AI adoption at scale. The Commission sets four broad goals for this: greater AI adoption among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); an AI-ready workforce; sovereign frontier AI development; and innovation-friendly implementation of the AI Act. Another set of actions encompassing AI literacy training programs, a frontier AI initiative, and enhanced digital innovation hubs establishes concrete steps toward these goals. A third section on a “single governance mechanism” creates a forum for industry and civil society feedback on AI policies and an AI-monitoring authority to guide investment targets, policymaking, and public communications on AI developments.

The strategy fits into an extensive constellation of EU AI initiatives and legislation. It explicitly builds on the AI Continent Action Plan, and it complements two other new strategies: the AI in Science Strategy, which aims to support AI in scientific research, and the Data Union Strategy, designed to broaden the use and availability of data for AI. The Commission also calls on EU member states to align national AI plans with the strategy’s sectoral framework to create a common approach to AI adoption.

European technological sovereignty remains a key theme in the Apply AI Strategy as the continent strives to curb reliance on technology from countries outside the EU. The aim of the strategy’s “AI first policy” reflects the bloc’s goal to “integrate AI building on European solutions”. But the plan sets no specific requirements for the use of European sovereign technologies. US and multinational companies also have some opportunities to participate in the initiatives. They can join the industry feedback forum, for example, although broader transatlantic involvement remains unclear. Still, the speed and extent to which Europe can travel down the long, costly road to technological sovereignty remains an unknown.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.