Google EMEA President Debbie Weinstein warned European business leaders that the continent risks losing its €1.2 trillion AI opportunity due to regulatory overreach and delayed tech access. Speaking at the European Business Summit in Brussels, she revealed that only 14% of European businesses currently use AI - far behind China and the US - while over 100 EU regulations since 2019 have created barriers for startups and established companies alike.
Google just delivered a stark warning to European policymakers: the continent's massive AI opportunity is slipping away due to regulatory red tape and restricted access to cutting-edge technology. In her first major public address since taking the helm of Google EMEA, President Debbie Weinstein told business leaders at the European Business Summit in Brussels that Europe faces an urgent choice between embracing AI innovation or falling further behind global competitors.
The numbers paint a troubling picture. While AI could boost Europe's economy by €1.2 trillion within a decade, according to Weinstein's remarks, only 14% of European businesses currently use AI - a rate that lags significantly behind adoption in China and the United States. "European businesses deserve the best AI tools and services, but they're not currently getting them," she said during the summit.
Google has been doubling down on its European presence even as regulatory headwinds intensify. The company just announced a €5.5 billion infrastructure investment in Germany last week, adding to its existing footprint of over 40 offices and 31,000 employees across the continent. The tech giant also operates Security Operations Centers in Munich, Dublin, and Malaga, while its DeepMind division - home to Nobel Prize-winning AI research - serves nearly one million AlphaFold users across EMEA.
But Weinstein's message carried an edge of frustration with Europe's regulatory approach. Since 2019, she noted, more than 100 EU regulations have targeted the digital economy, creating what she described as an unsustainable burden on businesses. The impact is already visible: Meta's Llama multimodal models faced delays, OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode hit restrictions, and Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode launched "significantly slower" in Europe than elsewhere.
The regulatory maze isn't just slowing big tech companies. According to Weinstein's data, one-third of European developers at small tech companies have had to remove or downgrade features to comply with requirements. "A European business building on old technology is wading through quicksand compared to its competitors elsewhere," she warned, highlighting how the latest Google AI models are now 300 times more powerful than those available just two years ago.
