Europe faces AI adoption gap and calls for open-source solutions

Europe is currently lagging behind the United States in the adoption of artificial intelligence within the workplace. According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, approximately 43% of US workers were expected to use AI in their jobs by early 2026, compared to only 32% in Europe.

This disparity is attributed to an “organizational gap” rather than a lack of computing power or model access. European companies face hurdles including skill shortages, skepticism regarding the reliability of AI outputs, cybersecurity concerns, and the high costs of integrating AI into existing workflows and data flows.

To achieve technological independence and avoid becoming a “vassal” to US technology, Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai suggests that Europe must embrace open-source AI. During a conference in Italy, Tsai argued that open-source models allow industries, such as manufacturing, to utilize high-quality production data locally and retrain models for specific needs without feeding sensitive information into closed-source APIs.