Apply AI: The Commission's Plan To Put An AI First Europe Into Practice

In the ongoing global race for AI leadership, the EU Commission (the Commission) launched the Apply AI Strategy (the Strategy) on 8 October 2025. This initiative is designed to promote AI adoption across the economy and public sector to "facilitate AI integration to enhance the competitiveness of European industries", positioning Europe as a frontier in AI. Building on the AI Continent Action Plan launched in April 2025, this Strategy reflects a broader commitment to "harnessing the transformative potential of AI" and reducing dependence on non-EU technology providers.

Rather than introducing further AI related legislative initiatives, the Strategy focuses on driving AI deployment across various sectors. It is accompanied by the AI Strategy in Science, which introduces the Resource of AI Science in Europe (RAISE) "a virtual institute that pools excellent talent, compute, data and research funding" for AI advancement across "scientific disciplines". A Data Union Strategy is also expected soon to further complement the Strategy ensuring "availability of high quality, large-scale datasets essential for training AI models". To deliver on the ambitions contained within the Strategy, the Commission plans to mobilise around €1 billion from its funding programmes to promote AI deployment.

Key objectives

The Strategy adopts an AI-first policy encouraging organisations "to integrate AI building on European solutions" creating an EU AI ecosystem. To achieve this, the Strategy pursues three goals:

1. Introducing sectoral flagships: "introducing targeted measures" to accelerate AI uptake in key industrial sectors and public services by embedding an "AI‑first" approach to decision‑making.
2. Addressing cross-cutting challenges: supporting measures to enhance competitiveness and "technological sovereignty" through "leveraging advanced AI capabilities", promoting market adoption and enabling an "AI-ready workforce across sectors".
3. Creating a unified governance mechanism: the Apply AI Alliance (the AI Alliance) will act as a pioneer in AI driven solutions and "ensure policy actions are grounded in real-world needs". Working in parallel, the AI Observatory will "develop key performance indicators and monitor AI developments, impact and future trends".

Scaling AI across sectors

The Commission sets out sectoral flagships to deploy AI in at least ten areas including healthcare, robotics, manufacturing, defence and security, transport, electronic communications, energy, climate and environment, agri-food, culture and media, as well as the public sector. At the centre of this, the Strategy outlines targeted initiatives to overcome adoption challenges within each sector and sets out specific actions to embed an "AI-first policy" across supply chains.

For example, while AI is already widely used in transport, progress and deployment is limited by challenges in accessing high quality data and technological, regulatory and economic barriers. To address these issues, the Commission will launch initiatives to compliment the Automotive Action Plan and leverage AI factories and gigafoctoires to "fast track the development of innovative AI models and common software platforms for automated driving and vehicle management systems". In healthcare, the Commission plans to establish European AI-powered advanced screening centres to support illness prevention and diagnosis, alongside creating a network on AI deployment in healthcare to consolidate principles, playbooks and guidelines for best practices. For electronic communications, the Commission will "promote EU capacities in edge AI devices" and create a "European Telco AI platform" to allow the industry to collaboratively "build AI stack elements".

By tackling sector-specific barriers the Commission aims to create an integrated AI ecosystem that accelerates deployment and strengthens Europe's global competitiveness.

Barriers and challenges

Expanding on the objectives of the AI Continent Action Plan, the Strategy aims to target cross-sector challenges by:

1. Refocusing the European Digital Innovation Hubs into Experience Centres for AI to support European SMEs, which are crucial in "bridging supply and demand and in promoting a European AI Stack". The Commission will "launch a call for expression" to invite European companies to "share their AI models and systems with the network" of Experience Centres, to promote "their wide-scale deployment" making AI adoption more accessible and affordable.
2. Building an AI ready workforce by "promoting AI literacy" via early AI education, continuous reskilling and upskilling via the Pact for Skills, and sector-specific training through the AI Skills Academy. Additional programs such as "AI for Business" and an "AI Entrepreneurs Lab" will be created for "digital-intense sectors in need of AI sectoral talent". The Commission will also monitor AI's impact on the labour market to keep informed of the implications AI will have on the workforce.
3. Supporting AI as a production factor by advancing "capabilities through cutting-edge AI architectures and high-quality data" and leveraging access to computing power via AI factories and gigafacotries. Collaboration will be achieved via calls for interest and EU-wide competitions to develop open frontier AI models. To support the EU scientific community, RAISE will "pool strategic resources to push the technological frontiers of AI and harness its potential to drive scientific breakthroughs". Such resources will include funding, data, computing, and talent. RAISE will operate on two pillars (1) "Science for AI" (supporting and advancing safe and secure frontier AI); and (2) "AI in Science" (applying AI across disciplines) to drive the "co-evolution of AI and science".
4. Ensuring trust in the EU market by committing to "clear, innovation-friendly implementation" of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act), which is timely considering the calls for and related rumours regarding potential implementation delays or refinements of the EU AI Act. While initiatives such as the General Purpose AI Code of Practice, Commission Guidelines, and the AI Pact aim to provide clarity, stakeholder feedback highlights persistent uncertainty as the "biggest obstacle" to implementation of the EU AI Act, "slowing down AI uptake". Whilst the Commission has been active in addressing these concerns e.g. launching the AI Act Service Desk, it will continue to support implementation by working on priority areas such as guidance on classifying high-risk AI systems and guidelines on the EU AI Act's interaction with other EU laws, including sector-specific regulations.

Governance and coordination

The AI Alliance will shape AI policy through a forum which will allow stakeholders to gain direct access to policy makers to discuss the "impact, barriers, and opportunities" of sector-specific AI solutions. "Continuous cooperation between Apply AI Alliance, AI Board and RAISE will also facilitate the upscale of valuable research into development and reaching the European market".

Working in parallel, the Commission will establish an AI Observatory to monitor trends and address the sectoral impact of AI creating a channel for "political analysis and decision making". The AI Observatory will also inform the public on AI investment targets and "recent developments in the field".

Crucially, the AI Board, created under the EU AI Act, will remain the primary forum for communications with member states and "will be regularly informed of the activities under the Apply AI Alliance". The AI Board subgroup on innovation will monitor national AI strategies and "facilitate exchange of best practices". On this basis, the Commission recommends that Member States align their national AI initiatives with the sector-specific model outlined in the Strategy.

A blueprint for AI

The Apply AI Strategy aims to help industries and the public sector understand AI capabilities, its effectiveness, and leverage it for competitive advantage. It promotes embedding AI into problem-solving processes, and, through a mix of sector-specific measures, the Strategy offers a "template" to "support the deployment and scaling of relevant AI solutions". The Commission intends the Strategy to serve as a "blueprint" for full scale implementation of AI across the EU's strategic sectors.

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