Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries across Europe. Adoption is accelerating, from large enterprises to digital natives and start-ups: “Five businesses every minute are adopting AI across Europe,” says Tanuja Randery, managing director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at Amazon Web Services. “The pace is incredible.”
Still, the region may be at risk of falling behind. Many organizations across the continent are struggling with regulatory complexity, a shortage of digital skills, and limited access to critical-stage capital.
In this interview with Caroline Tufft, a senior partner in McKinsey’s London office, Tanuja Randery explains how Europe can build institutions with strong digital foundations, drive scale, and embed resilience—and why now is the time for businesses to be bold.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Europe’s accelerating AI adoption
Caroline Tufft: You’ve said that AI adoption in Europe is moving faster than many people realize. What are you seeing across the market?
Tanuja Randery: Just in the past year alone we’ve seen nearly 30 percent more adoption of AI Europe-wide. Five businesses every minute are adopting AI across Europe—from enterprises to digital natives to start-ups. The pace is incredible.
What’s exciting is not just efficiency and productivity gains—though of course Europe needs those—but the growth and innovation that this technology drives. There’s no sector, no process, no part of any value chain that can’t be improved and reinvented with AI.
Our research shows that gen AI alone could add $400 billion in economic value for Europe, and when you include cloud and digital technologies broadly, the number rises to about $3 trillion. The impact is going to be very big, but speed is of the essence.
Caroline Tufft: What will it take for Europe to realize that potential?
Tanuja Randery: Europe stands on the brink of an unprecedented opportunity, but again, speed really matters. I hear the same three needs from companies of every size: regulatory clarity, digital skills, and access to capital.
On regulation, the EU AI Act is an important milestone, but right now it can feel like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces keep moving. Responsible AI matters enormously, but so does consistency across markets so that innovation can flourish.
On talent, Europe produces some of the world’s best AI researchers, but a lack of mainstream digital skills will be one of the biggest blockers to adoption. And on capital, we need more funding for early- and late-stage start-ups—and especially more for female founders. Europe has brilliant ideas and research; now we need to scale them.
Building trusted digital foundations in Europe
Caroline Tufft: How are the global tech players adapting to Europe’s unique regulatory and data environment?
Tanuja Randery: The conversation across Europe centers on three things: choice, security, and performance. Choice means no winner-takes-all model—AWS’s Bedrock platform gives access to models from Amazon Nova to Anthropic, Mistral AI, and OpenAI. Security is built in from the start. Your data, particularly now, is your biggest asset. It’s so important that you know where your data is at all times, that only you—as a customer who owns that data—can move it. And cost and performance matter. We’re investing heavily alongside Nvidia in chip infrastructure, but also in our own chips.
Caroline Tufft: How are you translating those priorities into action on the ground in Europe?
Tanuja Randery: We work backward from our customer. Our goal is to give customers secure infrastructure built and operated in Europe, particularly for customers working in highly regulated sectors such as healthcare and the public sector. We take a long-term view. This isn’t about quarterly returns; it’s about investing deeply in Europe’s future and building infrastructure that consumers can trust.
How businesses can scale adoption
Caroline Tufft: How should companies think about where they are on the AI journey?
Tanuja Randery: We see three stages. The first is efficiency, where most enterprises are today: using AI to automate processes and improve productivity. That’s everything from chatbots to automatic email responses.
The second is operational transformation: deploying AI end-to-end across functions, which requires workflow redesign. Only about 12 percent of large enterprises are there today. It’s where business and technology teams really come together around outcomes.
And the third thing is strategic reinvention, when companies use AI to create new business models and reimagine industries. We see start-ups leading the way here. Some are building custom models around their industries; others are creating new ecosystems and products.
Caroline Tufft: Where do European start-ups fit in this picture?
Tanuja Randery: Europe has an ecosystem with clusters of unicorns in Berlin, Stockholm, Paris and London. But there is limited late-stage growth capital and regulation is too fragmented. So you’ve got small businesses struggling to scale, and multiple jurisdictions and languages slows founders down further.
Leading with an AI mindset
Caroline Tufft: How can leaders create the conditions for their organizations to move quickly and confidently with AI?
Tanuja Randery: It starts with being clear about the problem you’re trying to solve. Don’t get distracted by everything that’s uncontrollable—focus on the big issues that matter for your business. Challenge yourself and your teams to keep asking “why.” Stay curious, question assumptions, and rethink how things are done. It’s the same mindset that founders have: getting scrappy, experimenting, and learning as you go.
Caroline Tufft: What does that look like inside Amazon?
Tanuja Randery: At Amazon, we talk a lot about the way we grew up and the way we scaled. The small teams. You don’t need a hundred people and $100 million to innovate. You need builders—people who love solving problems and leaders who empower them to do it.
This isn’t a time to be timid; it’s a time to be bold. Use the technology yourself. Pick something you’re working on and try it. You can’t ask your teams to do something you aren’t role modeling. If we go fast, stay curious, and work together, Europe has a phenomenal opportunity ahead.
The power and purpose of AI
Caroline Tufft: Beyond economics, how do you see AI shaping society?
Tanuja Randery: We need to remain cautious about the speed of adoption and the way it’s evolving. But—with responsible AI governance—I am absolutely positive that it will do amazing things for humankind. Healthcare and life sciences will be completely rewritten—drugs coming to market faster, people accessing care who couldn’t before. Education will be transformed; connectivity will be equalized.
We’re very focused on responsible AI. It’s rarely technology itself that causes problems; it’s the governance and the use case. Education of leaders and regulators is key. We provide guardrail tools to help customers remove bias and harmful content and to use AI safely and effectively.
