The Hungarian government is following the former path, and the audience of the EY AI Confidential Club received first-hand information from the leader of the government’s AI strategy.

Hungary recognized the importance of artificial intelligence for the national economy early on, and began developing its strategy in 2020, according to Palkovics. The process was halted for a while by Covid and other crises, but work resumed this year. As part of this, a survey was conducted on the use of AI by domestic companies, and some results were shared exclusively with the participants of the EY AI Confidential Club by the government commissioner.

Returning to the future applications of AI, Palkovics stated that the efficiency of state administration can be greatly improved with AI, which is supported by the fact that much information is already digitized and centralized, such as healthcare data. As for the legal framework, it already exists—the EU’s AI Act regulates this area appropriately. The key is to move forward and develop, and regulatory test environments, or sandboxes, provide a good framework for this. For Hungary, the industrial application of artificial intelligence is particularly important, for example in the fields of self-driving cars or robotics, added László Palkovics.

From the perspective of ethics and regulation, Ansgar Koene believes that incorporating regulatory test environments (sandboxes) into the government’s AI strategy is an important and useful decision. Although their prevalence is not significant yet, over time they can be an important tool for SMEs to prepare for the application of AI in business operations.

Instead, Europe should identify niche areas where it can be the strongest competitor to either America or China. Europe could win in the global market where others are still weak, suggested Ansgar Koene.

On the other side of the ocean, there is a fundamentally different approach to regulation, and Combiz Richard Abdolrahimi compared European and American regulatory practices. In the United States, legislation gives more room for industry self-regulation, while the EU applies more detailed regulation. Neither can be said to be clearly better or worse; rather, they reflect different philosophies. The key is that the most important thing is always the interest and protection of the user.

In the second part of EY AI Confidential, the pace of the presentations picked up. Erik Slooten and Dr. George Tilesch, EY’s AI expert partners, jointly gave a presentation — an EY roadmap built on the most recent industry experiences regarding the bottlenecks and solutions of AI adoption, all that to support each company and public institution with a blueprint to implement AI and reap ROI in a one-year timeframe.   

According to Slooten and Tilesch, the main reason for AI project failures is not technology, but organizational unpreparedness—for example, weak change management, low AI literacy, and inadequate data quality. Successful AI transformation requires employee involvement, targeted upskilling programs, and the integration of AI applications into daily workflows. CEOs can gain the most if they align their AI strategy with business goals, build ethical and transparent governance, and support AI experimentation within the company. AI only brings real business value—and potentially enormous value—if it is consciously and responsibly integrated at every level of the organization, concluded Erik Slooten and George Tilesch.