I went to the first day of World Summit AI in Amsterdam with pretty much no expectations, and came back with more opinions than I left home with. But behind the merch wars and vague slogans, one theme stood out: Europe’s so-called “AI problem” isn’t regulation — it’s ambition. And that matters, because whether Europe wins or loses in AI will define its role in the next era of global tech. If we don’t get it right, and keep playing safe while others are sprinting, we risk becoming the market that buys AI, not the one that builds it and just naturally that is an issue because it's not buyers who are changing the world.
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As expected, every company that had a stand was pitching their “AI-powered” something. For most of them, their merch was more interesting to me than their value prop, because at the end of the day, the lines around what are tech companies doing nowadays are pretty blurry. Everyone’s “unlocking business potential” or “embedding AI responsibly” or “driving transformation.” Big missions with expensive lingo at the end just all sound bit too vague, but I guess that’s how it is when the industry is pretty young. Honestly, the most creative marketing stunt was from Google’s stand, they limited Gemini to just talk to you about coffee, ask you questions and recommend you a cup based on what it learns from you. Pretty simple, low effort - high impression trick. Now, about the elephant in the room - the one I think we are gonna talk about for a few more years: State of AI and tech in EU.

The myth of EU regulations as the villain

Peter Sarlin, co-founder and CEO of Silo AI, made it crystal clear from the get go: regulations aren’t what’s holding Europe back. He’s been part of the AI Act discussions since 2017, and his point was simple: rules matter, but they’re not the reason Europe doesn’t have its own OpenAI or Anthropic.

The real issue, according to Peter, is ambition.

Europe has talent, capital, and access to compute. What Europe lacks is a shared sense of scale or urgency. EU Founders might be too reasonable at times, and not lucid enough to chase ideas bigger than themselves; or still romanticize stability and legacy industries that Europe dominated in the last 50 years, instead of aiming for the moon (or Mars, or if that’s yesterdays news, pick the next planet in line). Europe’s fragmented market doesn’t help either, Peter mentioned that one customer in New York can be worth more than dominating an entire market in Europe, and when every go-to-market strategy has to be localized, adapted, translated, and re-regulated, it’s not surprising companies want to move across the ocean.

So if the one thing that's holding Europe back is its ambition, then it most definetely shouldn’t be optional, ambition should be a default.

Never-ending coffee streams, and marketing lesson from never-ending coffee queues

My marketing brain dissects the campaigns to literal words and tries to make sense of what companies actually want to say. When they all want to say kinda the same, the message becomes invisible, it has no value anymore. Somewhere between the merch wars (what’s with so many stress balls lately?) and the rubber ducks squeaking under every seat, one experience stood out.

As mentioned earlier, “Unlocking business potential” or “embedding AI responsibly” could have been Google’s event strategy today as well. I mean all other huge players chose that approach. But Gemini’s coffee advisor was a constant crowd magnet, with long queues forming all day long, while there were some other pretty good options to get your caffeine dose. (what’s even a dose when it’s on the tap like this?)

That was the real marketing lesson of the day: simple, clear, and fun beats smart-wannabe, 100-dollar words every time. Showing what’s possible in the smallest, most relatable way is way more powerful than shouting, “We’ll save you 100K annually with AI.” *yawns*. There’s real opportunity here for the next wave of AI companies to ditch the corporate lingo and define a new kind of brand voice. Just think about it — OpenAI, with its endless model releases, mountains of user data, and more use cases than anyone can count, only just launched its first international brand campaign. That alone tells you how unexplored and undefined this space still is. Another opportunity for Europe. In a world full of corporate jargon, brands that speak with clarity will win, because vagueness in communication isn’t sophistication, it’s a lack of confidence made visible.

Real problems > shiny demos

The CEO of GoodHabitz, Annabelle Vulteem, reminded us that when there’s no real problem to solve, and building AI products happens just because “we need to be doing AI,” often those AI products fail.

But when the problem is real, it’s scoped thoroughly - embedding AI feels natural, and their products don’t just work; they scale and are there to stay. Exactly this is at the core of how we build ventures at Builders. We invest a lot of effort upfront, to detect real problems worth solving, before even sketching a first screen, let alone build the hero features. Our AI-first ventures are built on the fundamentals of research done with, on average, 250 calls with industry leaders. It’s the same logic AWS’ Rahul Pathak laid out in their “AI mindset” talk: start from the business goal, treat data as your differentiator, and remember that discipline equals freedom. This framework pretty much equals our own MO: validate a real problem to solve, rely on your unique data (the research:ICP calls), and stay focused & trust the process.

Europe’s quiet opportunity

While we are at the keynote from AWS, there was this staggering data point: 49% of companies in the Netherlands already use AI, the rest 51% don’t. Five new EU businesses adopt AI every minute. This realization fits with the notion that tech founders always feel behind and too late to the party, while the reality is that they are always at the front, and just in time. That feeling of being behind actually urges to push forwards, to be even more in front. This 51% of companies in the NL can mean many good things: opportunity for your consultancies and AI adoption services, weaker competition, chance to define new markets, but most importantly: a huge confidence boost to start and keep building.

That 51% gap can be seen as a warning sign, or an opportunity? Pair it with Sarlin’s take on Europe’s strength in industries like automotive, gaming, and life sciences — deep, complex systems sitting on mountains of valuable data — and suddenly the tables turn. Europe could be late to one party; but it can definitely host the next big one.

Creativity and unique data will be the real differentiator

We already have access to all the APIs, and can connect any data-heavy systems together (think just your HR, Project Tracking or ATS), without coding knowledge. These solutions are going to become more and more off-the-shelved (yes I made that up), where for the future founders and startups, the real differentiator will not be anymore How is something built, yet the unique data you have and how creative can you be with it. The bleak branding I mentioned earlier, that is not that bad after all, reflects the state we are in, and a huge opportunity to build something incredible and maybe even define a whole new market. If you dare to to think big, while being ready to put your boots on the ground and are not afraid of a few scars, well, we might just be a match. Come build with us.

Closing thoughts and building anyway

Europe’s AI landscape might look fragmented, risk-averse, and overly cautious — but every signal I detected at the AI summit today, every talk, every demo, confirmed one thing: the hunger to build is real. Considering myself European, of course I am bias when saying I think and would love for Europe to win, but I don’t mean or want others to lose, just that Europe has its own edge, we just need to consistently keep identifying it and doubling down on it. The risk isn’t regulation; it’s that we keep playing too small. Ambition must become default. Europe doesn’t just have the talent to catch up — it has the data, the industries, and the builders to lead. We just need to start acting like it.

Until next time, we keep building.