Written by: Haim Ravia, Dotan Hammer
The European Commission has adopted the “Apply AI Strategy,” aiming to leverage the rapidly advancing capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reshape entire industries and the public sector.
Building on the EU AI Act and a commitment to trustworthy, human-centric AI, the strategy seeks to boost innovation, accelerate productivity, and reinforce the EU’s competitive strength and technological sovereignty. While the EU has a strong industrial base, AI adoption remains limited, with only 13.5% of businesses utilizing these technologies. To address this, the strategy promotes an “AI-first policy,” encouraging companies and public sector organizations to integrate European AI building blocks into their problem-solving approaches. The Commission is mobilizing around 1 billion Euros from funding programs to operationalize the actions in this strategy.
The strategy is articulated around three core sections. The first focuses on introducing sectoral flagships to boost AI usage across key European industries and public services. Flagship initiatives are detailed for sectors including healthcare (establishing AI-powered advanced screening centers and drug discovery challenges), manufacturing (funding frontier AI models and acceleration pipelines), defense and space (deploying secured computing power for training models), mobility, electronic communications, energy, climate, agri-food, cultural sectors, and the public sector (developing an AI toolbox and accelerating scalable generative AI solutions).
The second section addresses cross-cutting challenges necessary for scaling AI adoption. This involves supporting SMEs by refocusing European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) as Experience Centers for AI; enabling an AI-ready workforce across sectors through tailored AI literacy training via the AI Skills Academy; and supporting AI as a fundamental production factor, including the launch of a Frontier AI Initiative to accelerate cutting-edge capabilities and enhance sovereignty.
Finally, the strategy ensures trust by stepping up efforts for AI Act compliance, providing further guidelines (e.g., on high-risk classification and legal interplay), and setting up an AI Act Service Desk to provide tailored compliance assistance. The final section establishes a single governance mechanism, creating an AI Observatory to monitor developments and trends, and transforming the existing AI Alliance into a coordination forum for stakeholders and policymakers.
Click here to read the EU Commission’s Apply AI Strategy.
