If we want European society to reap the benefits of AI, then European innovators need to be able to innovate in Europe.

To do this, innovators need regulatory certainty and clear rules that work in support of progress. Not against it.

The EU AI Act is a step forward by providing a framework for developers and a consistent set of standards. However, fragmented rules elsewhere - like GDPR which is applied inconsistently across Europe, are continuing to slow progress, especially for open-source AI. 

That’s why we’re supporting this open letter on AI to drive change.

Fragmented regulation means the EU risks missing out on the AI era.

We are a group of companies, researchers and institutions integral to Europe and working to serve hundreds of millions of Europeans. We want to see Europe succeed and thrive, including in the field of cutting-edge AI research and technology. But the reality is Europe has become less competitive and less innovative compared to other regions and it now risks falling further behind in the AI era due to inconsistent regulatory decision making.

In the absence of consistent rules, the EU is going to miss out on two cornerstones of AI innovation. The first are developments in ‘open’ models that are made available without charge for everyone to use, modify and build on, multiplying the benefits and spreading social and economic opportunity. The second are the latest ‘multimodal’ models, which operate fluidly across text, images and speech and will enable the next leap forward in AI. The difference between text-only models and multimodal is like the difference between having only one sense and having all five of them.

Frontier-level open models like Llama – based on text or multi-modal – can turbocharge productivity, drive scientific research, and add hundreds of billions of euros to the European economy. Public institutions and researchers are already using these models to speed up medical research and preserve languages, while established businesses and start-ups are getting access to tools they could never build or afford themselves. Without them, the development of AI will happen elsewhere – depriving Europeans of the technological advances enjoyed in the US, China and India.

The EU’s ability to compete with the rest of the world on AI and reap the benefits of open source models rests on its single market and shared regulatory rulebook. If companies and institutions are going to invest tens of billions of euros to build Generative AI for European citizens, they require clear rules, consistently applied, enabling the use of European data. But in recent times, regulatory decision making has become fragmented and unpredictable, while interventions by the European Data Protection Authorities have created huge uncertainty about what kinds of data can be used to train AI models. This means the next generation of open source AI models, and products, services we build on them, won’t understand or reflect European knowledge, culture or languages. The EU will also miss out on other innovations, like Meta’s AI assistant, which is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of this year.

Europe faces a choice that will impact the region for decades.

It can choose to reassert the principle of harmonisation enshrined in regulatory frameworks like the GDPR so that AI innovation happens here at the same scale and speed as elsewhere. Or, it can continue to reject progress, betray the ambitions of the single market and watch as the rest of the world builds on technologies that Europeans will not have access to.

We hope European policymakers and regulators see what is at stake if there is no change of course. Europe can’t afford to miss out on the widespread benefits from responsibly built open AI technologies that will accelerate economic growth and unlock progress in scientific research. For that we need harmonised, consistent, quick and clear decisions under EU data regulations that enable European data to be used in AI training for the benefit of Europeans. Decisive action is needed to help unlock the creativity, ingenuity and entrepreneurialism that will ensure Europe’s prosperity, growth and technical leadership.

For more information and list of all signatories please visit EUneedsAI.com.