Beyond economic growth and technological progress, data and AI should contribute to improved quality of life, stronger public services and greater opportunities for citizens. Europe should promote inclusive, sustainable and human-centric adoption of AI and data technologies, ensuring that their benefits are broadly shared and that societal and environmental impacts are considered alongside economic value. While many discussions focus on the risks and challenges of AI, AI also presents significant opportunities for industry, education, and research. Europe should invest more effort in identifying and exploiting these opportunities, rather than concentrating primarily on risk mitigation. Over the next few years, AI is expected to generate substantial positive impacts, but this will require proactive support and strategic nurturing
Priority areas include:
- Societal benefits and inclusive adoption, ensuring that AI and data technologies contribute to improved public services, quality of life and citizen empowerment, while avoiding the concentration of benefits and addressing potential societal and environmental impacts.
- Transformation of work and the workforce, anticipating how AI will reshape jobs, tasks, skills and organisational models, while preserving and enhancing the role of human expertise and judgement.
- Education, skills and lifelong learning, adapting education and training systems and enabling reskilling and upskilling to support an inclusive transition towards AI-enabled economies and societies.