How European Founders Can Win the Brewing AI Chatbot Race What should business leaders know about generative AI chatbots to ensure their tools stay ahead of the curve?

Europeans are in a heated competition to develop their own artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots. From Swedish GPT-SW3 to France's BLOOM, European Union (EU) countries have launched and supported a flurry of initiatives aimed at creating chatbots that are truly fluent in local languages.

In May 2024, just hours after OpenAI released its latest version, ChatGPT competitor Claude arrived in Europe with free and business subscription options. Designed to avoid biases, discrimination, and hate speech, the company focuses on reliable, steerable, and accessible AI and supports French, Spanish, German, Italian, and many other European languages.

While some Chatbot companies are reviewing cultural nuances, others are focusing on accessibility in terms of computational efficiency — models like Luminous, only half as big as its competitors with 70 billion parameters, achieve twice the efficiency at the same level of performance.

EU has an advantage with clear guidelines.

Companies know where they can operate in the EU. The region has set a clear regulatory framework benefiting both the providers and consumers of AI. By complying early with regulations, founders can lower their barriers to market and build credibility with their target audience.

As the world leader in AI regulations, Europe promotes values such as sustainable computing, privacy by design in algorithms, and technological sovereignty. Founders should take note of these when building their technology.

Whether chatbots are used to share potential causes of medical symptoms, offer investment advice, or give legal guidance, founders should consider a transparent confidence scoring system. This is where the chatbot grades the level of certainty about the information provided in each response, improving responsible use and building trust with users. Even internally, as "AI assistants," founders should ensure their experts review chatbot outcomes to confirm accuracy.

Those using a chatbot provider must check they have a proper contract following Article 28 of GDPR to ensure data is handled safely. But if the chatbot involves sending personal data outside Europe, it might need additional safeguards like standard contracts and data transfer assessments. A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) will help understand the privacy risks of using chatbots and ensure they follow GDPR regulations.

European founders can start assessments by building a team with expertise in data protection, chatbot development, and legal compliance. They should clearly define how the chatbot collects, stores, uses, and shares personal data, identify risks such as unfair profiling or unauthorised access, and maintain a comprehensive record of the appropriate measures in place. Complying with these regulations will boost credibility and trust in the market.

EU progress in encouraging the adoption of AI tools.

In terms of digital skills proficiency, Europe leads the globe regionally home to 19 of the top 25 countries according to Coursera's ranking in its annual Global Skills Report 2024 — providing the EU with a significant edge. Local founders have access to competitive digital skills initiatives and AI can help accelerate these.

With the initial clarity from clear AI regulations, there are other initiatives that help progress the development of AI: the European Commission has set ambitious goals — to equip 80% of EU adults with basic digital skills and create a workforce of 20 million information and communication technology (ICT) specialists by 2030. By making €560 billion available, they will help EU Member States finance skills-related reforms.

Even with the funding, the EU is a long way off from meeting its 2030 targets, and European founders must take GenAI upskilling into their own hands to stay competitive, meet customer expectations, and innovate.

Getting a quick overview with free courses, found by government-run programmes or large digital-native companies, is a good start to familiarising employees with GenAI. Paid courses can be found on Udemy and Coursera, covering how to use GenAI to help with content, prompt engineering, and GenAI cybersecurity practices — skills EU founders and their teams will need to compete globally.

AI can help train employees and give access to the information they need to build and maximise similar tools themselves. Founders can implement GenAI pilot projects to give employees a dynamic understanding of relevant chatbot applications and ethical considerations to be aware of.

GenAI chatbot capabilities for EU employees and customers.

Understanding what the EU market wants and how founders can take advantage of the regulations and skills initiatives to get there, will help them ensure they implement successful solutions and lead the chatbot race.

Some 54% of European consumers see AI as an opportunity, and half already use generative AI tools in their private or professional lives. Ease of use, better-than-expected results, and time savings are the top reasons for satisfaction in professional use cases.

A huge use case for founders is to review where GenAI integrations can buy employees some time. Almost two-fifths of European employees said they were more sensitive to stress than before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. They are constantly racing the clock, trying to do several things at once, particularly when multiple smaller and repetitive jobs pile up.

Natural language processing (NLP) models like Lingua Custodia, specialising in the fintech sector, achieve speeds five times faster than current systems. NLP-powered tools can transcribe meetings to reflect on, relieving stress and ensuring follow-on tasks can proceed smoothly. They can also summarise key information to return to when required and create actionable lists for teams to put in motion.

Outside of meetings, founders can create and use intelligent chatbots to generate and polish marketing and communication content, automate basic email replies such as client check-ins, streamline customer experiences, or make data-based communications decisions — such as understanding a customer's emotional status and offering them an apology or a reward based on the conversational context.

GenAI chatbots are making huge strides across the continent. In the European banking industry, GenAI could deliver value equal to an additional $200 billion to $340 billion in annual revenues. The potential revenue impact in the retail and consumer sectors could reach $400 billion to $660 billion annually.

AI-powered chatbots are infiltrating industries globally, and the EU is in a strong position to maximise these tools with skill. Business founders who continue to understand how users are interacting with chatbots, the services they are looking for, and their data privacy needs have the foundation to build market-winning models. Founders must prepare and train their employees on the latest tools and regulations to ensure EU companies come out on top of the EU chatbot race.