Europe is doubling down on generative AI (GenAI) investment but is on a more cautious path than North America, according to new research from the Infosys Knowledge Institute 

The research arm of Infosys has forecasted that European companies will increase GenAI investments by 115 per cent in the next year, to $2.8 billion.

Cautious approach

The pace of investment is slower than in North America where spend is expected to reach close to $6 billion. This more cautious spend is largely due to concerns around ethics and bias driven by the more regulated European market. 

However, European companies remain optimistic about generative AI’s impact on their business and are much more confident in their ability to train and recruit talent, as well as manage and control generative AI systems.

Balakrishna D. R. (Bali), Executive Vice President, Global Head of AI and Industry Verticals, Infosys, said “Generative AI is driving phenomenal transformation across industries, and investment is happening at a rapid pace. Against the backdrop of an ever-evolving regulatory landscape, organizations must embed responsible AI techniques to not only improve data quality and management, but effectively manage ethics and bias risks.” 

The research has shown that for European businesses to derive business value, they must develop and evolve an AI-first operating model that prioritizes business transformation and skills development, and enables them to maximize human potential, he added. 

Challenges

Despite high levels of experimentation and implementation with GenAI, only 6 per cent of European companies generate business value with their GenAI use cases. France, Germany and the UK lead the region, with about 10 per cent of companies reporting value delivered by their GenAI projects.

European companies identified ethics and bias as the second biggest challenge, after data privacy and security. North American companies are less concerned with ethics and bias – where it was the fourth biggest challenge behind issues such as data privacy, unusable data and lack of skills.

The companies also have more boards of directors involved in GenAI policies, reflecting their concerns around regulations. In Europe, boards of directors set regulations and policies at more than 30 per cent of companies and are primary sponsors nearly 20 per cent of the time. More than 70 per cent of European respondents are confident in GenAI management abilities.