How OpenAI is Accelerating Europe’s Mass AI Adoption

As European policymakers struggle with translating AI ambitions into practical deployment, OpenAI is throwing its weight behind efforts to close the gap. 

The AI leader is publishing a report containing 20 proposals to accelerate AI adoption across Europe, timing the release just days before the European Commission presents its Apply AI Strategy.

The report, titled Hacktivate AI, comes out of a policy hackathon held in Brussels that brought together 65 participants from EU institutions, national governments, corporations, small businesses and the AI research community. 

The goal is to identify concrete ways to help Europe move faster on AI deployment across its economy.

What patchy adoption reveals about the digital divide across sectors

What’s emerging spans everything from helping individuals retrain for an AI-enabled workforce to cutting through regulatory red tape. 

One proposal calls for Individual AI Learning Accounts to support professional development. 

Another pushes for an AI Champions Network to get small and medium-sized enterprises moving on adoption. 

A third suggests setting up a European GovAI Hub to give public sector organisations shared resources and expertise.

Martin Signoux, EU AI Policy Lead at OpenAI, says: “Hacktivate AI brought together the energy of Europe’s leading businesses, civil society, and public institutions with the goal to close the gap between the bloc’s AI ambition and reality,” he says.

EU member states already rank among OpenAI’s largest markets globally when it comes to subscribers, developers using its API (the technical connection that lets them integrate AI into their own software) – and business customers. 

The pharmaceutical giant Sanofi uses the technology to speed up medical treatment development – while European startups like Parloa, which builds conversational AI tools, and Pigment, a business planning platform, are building their products on top of OpenAI’s systems.

But separate research by OpenAI reveals the picture is patchy. 

Looking at ChatGPT usage at work, the company finds that IT and finance sectors are racing ahead with adoption. 

Manufacturing follows, showing the broader digital change underway in that industry. 

Other sectors, however, are lagging well behind, exposing a gap between digitally mature industries and those still catching up.

“It’s clear that achieving broad-based adoption will require meaningful interventions that help Europe’s businesses and organisations put AI to work in all walks of life,” Martin says.

How OpenAI is pushing for regulatory harmonisation across the EU

A recurring theme across the proposals is simplification. 

One, dubbed Relentless Harmonisation, aims to advance the Digital Single Market by smoothing out the regulatory fragmentation that currently sees companies navigate different rules across the EU’s 27 member states. 

For businesses trying to operate across borders, this patchwork creates headaches.

The European Commission is expected to unveil its Apply AI Strategy within days, setting out how it plans to encourage AI deployment across business and the public sector. 

OpenAI’s proposals land as a direct contribution to that conversation – and the company has been deepening its policy engagement in Europe more broadly. 

It published an EU Economic Blueprint earlier this year and endorsed the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, which sets voluntary guidelines for companies developing AI systems that can handle multiple tasks. 

It has also struck partnerships with governments in Germany and Greece to support AI adoption in public services and education – while its OpenAI Academy has trained over two million people through free learning resources.

Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank President whose competitiveness report has shaped much of the debate, marked its first anniversary by stressing the urgency of faster AI adoption across the continent.

“It’s clear that achieving broad-based adoption will require meaningful interventions that help Europe’s businesses and organisations put AI to work in all walks of life.” Martin says.

“We hope that the EU’s Apply AI Strategy will deliver on the same goal and translate Europe’s ambition into concrete action.”