Portugal businesses assess AI benefits and safety risks

On 15 July, a briefing in the parish of Miranda do Douro presented local entrepreneurs with information on using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve marketing, content creation and advertising, and highlighted several financial support programmes for micro and small firms. Representatives from ADARME and Valdora Consulting explained that AI can help offset challenges such as depopulation and an ageing workforce, while the Portuguese tourism authority and regional development funds offer grants for job creation, equipment purchases, and digital upgrades.

At the same time, Siemens Portugal CEO Sofia Tenreiro warned at the IA Conference in Lisbon that AI hallucinations in industrial settings could endanger lives and generate costly errors. She stressed the need for reliable outputs in critical operations such as factories, hospitals, power grids and logistics, citing a digital‑twin project with Heineken that ran 22 months without production downtime. Tenreiro noted that only 10‑15% of companies see real impact from AI, citing data gaps and resistance to change, and urged firms to protect proprietary information while keeping humans central to decision‑making.