OpenAI offers EU ideas on how to catch up in AI

As Europe lags behind the US and China in artificial intelligence (AI), OpenAI is urging the continent to accelerate its adoption if it wants to remain competitive.

OpenAI and Allied for Startups, a global network of startup advocacy organizations, have released a report calling for European governments to adopt more agentic artificial intelligence (AI) and make changes in procurement policies.

The report comes days before the European Commission is expected to unveil its “Apply AI” Strategy, which aims to enable the bloc's companies to be global AI front-runners and increase the quality of services in the public sector.

The Hacktivate AI report contains 20 ideas generated during the hackathon, which took place in Brussels last week. It included representatives from the European Union (EU) institutions and national governments, enterprises, startups, economists, and AI experts.

The ideas proposed by the report included:

• Providing every worker with an annual training credit for AI-related courses or certifications.
• Offering tax credits or other fiscal incentives to companies that achieve a high rate of workforce AI training each year.
• Creating an ecosystem for exchanging data and compute credits, which could be used on EU AI gigafactories.
• Simplifying application processes and scaling compliance requirements proportionally to grant size could reduce the administrative burden on smaller startups.
• Adopting and fast-tracking international standards such as ISO 42001 and ISO 27001.
• Boosting the application of agentic AI in governments and public administrations and creating new procurement processes.
• Establishing the European GovAI Hub to share resources across the entire bloc's public sector.
• Creating special AI Zones with tax and regulatory simplifications that cover competition rules, state aid, and labor laws.
• Establishing a private-oriented investment bank funded through the European Investment Bank bond issuances.

Europe is falling behind the US and China

The United States and China are leading the AI race, leaving European powers behind.

Only two EU countries – France and Germany – rank among the top 10 for AI investment, innovation, and implementation, according to the index developed by Tortoise Media.

A study by Accenture, a consultancy company, found that 56% of European organizations haven't yet scaled "a truly transformative AI investment."

However, data suggests AI often falls short of tech companies' promises. A 2024 survey of C-suite executives revealed that 74% of companies haven't achieved tangible value from their AI use.

Last year's Draghi report on EU competitiveness emphasized that the deployment of AI is essential to the ability of public administrations to deliver "European public goods" in health, justice, education, and other fields.

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Criminal justice advocates and experts warn about the risks of using AI in justice, such as the technology reinforcing societal bias due to being trained on biased data and issues of data privacy. Similar concerns apply to health and education.