This discussion paper by McKinsey Global Institute explores the extent to which Europe’s digital gap with the world’s leaders is now being compounded by an emerging gap with the world’s leaders in its development and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
Without faster and more comprehensive engagement in AI, Europe’s digital gap with the world ‘s leaders adoption and development of AI could widen. Europe may not need to compete head to head but rather in areas where it has an edge (such as in business-to-business [B2B] and advanced robotics) and continues to scale up one of the world’s largest bases of technology developers into a more connected Europe-wide web of AI-based innovation hubs.
On many metrics, the European economy and its businesses have been grappling for years to capture the full potential of current and even previous generations of digital tools. A successful digital transformation is more important for Europeans at a time when new digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly being adopted.
Recent advances in robotics and AI are pushing the frontier of what machines are capable of doing in all facets of business and the economy. Although for smart machines to master more sophisticated tasks - let alone to acquire the dynamic intelligence of humans - might still take years, machine learning and analytics have already penetrated many industries, and the scope of that penetration is poised to grow rapidly in the years ahead.