Stop Chasing Washington and Beijing: EU AI Chief Urges Shift to Economic Productivity

Brussels has been told to stop running a race it did not start. Jim Hagemann Snabe, the European Union’s newly appointed artificial intelligence adviser, has urged EU commissioners to pivot their tech strategy away from directly imitating American and Chinese AI models. Speaking to top policy makers, Snabe argued that the bloc should instead deploy artificial intelligence to solve its own lagging economic productivity.

The message represents a tactical recalibration for executive policy. Rather than attempting to build domestic rivals to Silicon Valley’s massive consumer-facing language models or Beijing’s state-backed tech platforms, Snabe’s advice focuses on practical implementation across existing European industries. The goal is not to produce Europe's answer to Silicon Valley chatbots, but to make European businesses, factories, and services run faster and more efficiently using available technology.

For decades, European economic growth has trailed behind global competitors, burdened by sluggish productivity gains and high operational costs. When new technologies emerge, the instinct in policy circles often oscillates between rapid regulation and ambitious plans to construct state-sanctioned European champions from scratch.

By redirecting the focus toward productivity, the advisory touches directly on what European companies—and ultimately European citizens—experience daily. If European firms integrate AI into logistics, manufacturing, and services to work smarter rather than trying to build multi-billion-dollar foundational models from zero, it reduces operating costs and improves output. For ordinary citizens, higher economic productivity is the quiet engine behind wage growth, stronger public services, and overall economic stability.

Inside the EU machinery, advising commissioners to focus on economic utility rather than grand technological rivalry is a subtle reality check. The European Commission—the EU’s executive body responsible for proposing legislation and setting strategy—frequently finds itself caught between the ambition to compete with global superpowers and the reality of fragmented European markets.

Snabe’s pitch touches a sensitive nerve across European institutions. For years, the Brussels playbook for emerging tech involved drafting comprehensive regulatory frameworks first and worrying about industrial application second. Pointing commissioners toward practical economic gains asks the institution to think less like an umpire setting rules for a game played elsewhere, and more like a coach helping local industry win on its own pitch.

The ball is now in the Commission’s court to see how Snabe’s guidance translates into concrete policy recommendations and funding priorities. EU commissioners will need to decide whether to reshape upcoming digital and economic strategies around industrial adoption rather than direct technological competition.

Any shift in strategy will require cooperation across multiple portfolio heads in the Commission and eventual backing from member states in the Council of the EU. Whether Brussels can trade its traditional appetite for grand digital rivalry for a quieter, practical focus on factory-floor productivity will be tested as upcoming economic programs take shape.