(c) Soraya-Kandan 2025, Grand Palais Paris. The Grand Palais is a breathtaking venue, currently hosting an exhibition with Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely – two of my favorite artists. His line “Stillstand gibt es nicht” hangs on a poster in my home office and felt like the perfect message for a conference about AI and Europe’s future.

Last month, I was in Paris for two consecutive events that could not have felt more different in vibe, even though they overlapped almost completely in topic: how Europe can secure an edge in adopting AI. The first was the German-French Economic Summit; the second, Adopt AI in the Grand Palais.

Together, they may well be a looking glass into Europe's future AI opportunities and how leaders interpret responsibility under uncertainty.

A looking glass for AI adoption

At the German-French economic summit organized by the AHK in Paris, business, political and research leaders discussed Europe’s place in the global AI race, digital sovereignty and Europe’s geopolitical positioning. The speakers were impressive: from Nobel Prize laureates to former prime ministers and foreign ministers. Their ambitious agenda: strengthen the industrial base, accelerate innovation, simplify regulation and secure energy and digital sovereignty.

In their public recaps, organisers and participants described the day as a necessary European “sursaut”: no more time for hesitation. They stressed freeing up economic potential through talent, innovation and renewed entrepreneurial risk‑taking, backed by a common Franco‑German industrial and investment strategy. At the same time, they underlined that Europe must strengthen its industrial base, energy and technology sovereignty and geopolitical weight if it wants to remain competitive in an environment shaped by the US, China and new security realities.

The mood in the room was often sombre, even heavy, especially considering recent geopolitical developments and growing uncertainty around Europe’s economic future and peace on this continent.

(c) Soraya-Kandan 2025, Journée franco-allemand de l'économie, Paris November 24th at the Ministry of Economics.

Joschka Fischer put it bluntly: Europe was built for economic cooperation, not for defense; the transatlantic certainty of the past can no longer be taken for granted, and this will inevitably affect Europe’s economies.

The conversations were overshadowed by the fears of losing alignment with the United States, frustration over overregulation, and a growing sense of decline in Europe’s legacy industries, from automotive to chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Even when arguments were valid, the dominant tone was one of warning and "Bedenkenträgertum".

European values were invoked frequently, ethical responsibility emphasised strongly. Former Prime Minister Jean‑Pierre Raffarin emphasised the importance of not just proclaiming “leadership”, but choosing anti‑authoritarian leadership. A statement which I can only underline.

Europe's future for AI is open, and bright

One day later, Europe’s largest AI conference opened in the Grand Palais, with Germany as the guest of honor. More than 20,000 participants — researchers, entrepreneurs, established companies and start‑ups — gathered to discuss AI not as an abstract risk, but as a concrete field of action. People were lining up before the doors opened. There was anticipation in the air. The tone shifted. Panels and conversations focused on concrete use cases.

One of the most striking to me was Bikal, a UK company whose CEO Raj Sandhu described an unexpectedly optimistic view of European AI competitiveness. His team builds AI applications for social workers, police forces and pharmacists, or industry clients. The tool designed for the social servies e.g. support difficult, high‑stakes decisions rather than replace professionals. Raj Sandhu's leadership stance was clear: work with major partners, move fast in real contexts, and let “responsibility” mean careful deployment, not paralysis. His view for Europian AI is bright.

(c) Soraya-Kandan 2025, Adopt AI conference at the Grand Palais Paris. Philippe Aghion on stage with Anne Bouverot, Chairperson of the Board of Ecole Normale Supérieure, and France’s special envoy for AI

As Nobel Memorial Prize Economic Sciences Philippe Aghion put it in his keynote at Adopt AI:

Europe has “fantastic research potential” but has so far failed to turn it into enough breakthrough innovation; if it can build a true single market, the right financial ecosystem and a serious industrial policy, “Europe can play a central role in the AI revolution.”

Find his full talk here.

Warning versus authorizing action

The deeper difference between the two events was not optimism versus pessimism. It was leadership posture.

Germany, long protected by industrial success, now appears unsettled by declining markets and relevance in traditional industries. Risk aversion, historically an understandable cultural strength, increasingly shapes leadership behaviour. The result is a tendency to focus on preventing mistakes rather than enabling experimentation.

France, by contrast, is neither economically nor politically untroubled. Yet its leadership posture felt different. There was a visible willingness to act under uncertainty. Not a denial of pressures, but a refusal to be paralysed by them. The image that conjures in my mind: in moments of crises, the French keep dancing.

AI brings these patterns into sharp relief. Leaders who interpret responsibility primarily as “not causing harm” will tend to slow things down, create more processes, and demand more certainty before moving. Leaders who see responsibility as “shaping outcomes under uncertainty” will set guardrails, and then actively authorise their organisations to test, learn and adjust.

The core question for European leadership cultures is therefore not: "Are we pro or anti AI?." It is: "Do we mainly warn, or do we authorize action?"

AI as a cultural stress test

AI is a stress test for leadership culture, not just another technology. It rewards experimentation, speed and learning under uncertainty. It punishes hesitation disguised as responsibility.

In Paris, it became clear that Europe does not primarily struggle with technological capability. There is strong research, solid engineering and a growing ecosystem of applied AI companies. The real struggle is with how leaders interpret responsibility when the rules are not yet fully written.

In practical terms, this shows up in familiar patterns:

• Innovation projects stuck in pilot mode because no one is willing to commit to scale.  
• Ethics and compliance functions used as veto points instead of partners in design.  
• Strategy documents that name AI as priority but do not change incentives, processes or talent decisions.

The organisations that will move faster are not necessarily those with the most advanced models. They are those whose leaders are willing to treat AI as a live experiment and who stay close enough to the work to learn from it.

Digital sovereignty without illusions

“Digital sovereignty” was one of the most frequently used terms across both events, yet its meaning remained vague. A recent essay by sociologist Felix Stalder in the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* called Europe a "digital colony" pointing to how deeply our infrastructures and everyday practices rely on non‑European platforms and providers.

Europe’s industries and public administrations run on hyperscaler clouds, foundational models, chips and capital that are largely controlled elsewhere; this cannot be undone by political declarations alone. During the summit, some participants proposed “digital resilience” as a more realistic framing, but changing the word does not resolve the underlying tension.

If taken seriously, it implies long‑term investment, acceptance of transitional inefficiencies and clear decisions on where Europe wants genuine optionality and where it consciously accepts dependency as the price of speed. This is ultimately a leadership question, not a semantic one. Words like “sovereignty” and “resilience” are only useful if they translate into concrete priorities, budgets and timelines.

The choice ahead

Europe’s future with AI will not be decided by technology alone. It will also be shaped by the leadership cultures we reinforce and those we are willing to challenge.

We also need to resist reducing US perspectives to a single, unequivocal block. Europe often sounds morally self‑assured and strategically hesitant: quick to lecture on values, slow to move when it matters. We invoke responsibility, but too often practice caution.

As Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst and author of Unscaled (2018) and Intended Consequences (2022), argues, meaningful transformation happens at the intersection of technology, business, capital and policy. Otherwise, founders build powerful companies that go sideways and create the unintended consequences we are now living with. European leaders face a similar choice: either stay on the sidelines of that intersection or step into it.

Our competitiveness will depend on whether we treat responsibility as a brake, or as a mandate to move.