"As the EU is already lagging behind in innovation in the field of AI, this slowdown could destroy the AI ecosystem in the EU, as affected companies are also considering leaving the EU and moving to an area with more favorable regulation."
Chloe Pledel, European Project Manager, Hub.France.AI

Together with a broad spectrum of European contributors to this report, the appliedAI Initiative aims for a global leadership role in the field of AI, both in the AI strategies of individual countries and in the European strategy.

AI is considered an extremely strategic and transformative technology with major impact on our industry and society. This is also why our institutions exist - whether they were founded by national governments or the private sector. We all strive to achieve the goals of our AI strategies and share common goals of competitiveness, trustworthiness, and speed.

After receiving the feedback from our innovation ecosystems on the AI law presented in this report, we strongly urge not to forget how AI can be used to achieve our goals within the European Green Deal, healthcare, digital sovereignty, or other dimensions, amidst discussions on potential risks and negative impacts.

The current strong imbalance in the regulatory discussions will lead to us no longer being the creators but being shaped by others, resulting in a loss of our innovation power in AI. We hope that the voice of a true European AI ecosystem will be useful in the discussion on AI regulation in Europe.

This report is based on a comprehensive survey and provides, for the first time, an overview of the impact of the EU AI Act on startups in Europe.

Authors of the survey:

• Andreas Liebl, Managing Director at appliedAI Initiative
• Till Klein, Team Lead Trustworthy AI at appliedAI Initiative