The IAPP AI Governance Global Europe 2026 took place last week in Dublin, Ireland. Bringing together digital governance experts\u00a0across the spectrum\u00a0from technicians,\u00a0product owners, standards developers, lawyers, policymakers and regulators, the discussions were robust and vibrant.<\/p>\n
For those of you who\u00a0were not able to\u00a0attend\u00a0this year’s\u00a0event,\u00a0many of the sessions provided great presentations you can still see on the conference page<\/a>.\u00a0Throughout the year,\u00a0I’ve\u00a0had the pleasure of meeting our community at\u00a0various\u00a0IAPP\u00a0and artificial intelligence\u00a0events.\u00a0Similar to\u00a0what\u00a0we saw at the IAPP Global Summit in Washington, D.C., IAPP Canada Symposium and\u00a0the AI Impact Summit in India earlier this year,\u00a0the\u00a0appetite for practical knowledge\u00a0continues to grow. As you will see in the presentations, the depth of discussions and sharing of best practices during these conferences is on the rise. \u00a0<\/p>\n What\u00a0set\u00a0AIGG Europe apart is the fact that there are real rules for the management of AI looming. Even with the EU AI Act Omnibus pushing out some implementation timelines, the realities of\u00a0establishing\u00a0comprehensive AI governance practices in Europe are real. This combined with Ireland set to\u00a0take over the EU presidency, the discussions did not seem like they were occurring in the abstract.\u00a0The people who are navigating the\u00a0difficult task\u00a0of policy writing and\u00a0developing\u00a0regulatory\u00a0enforcement\u00a0were there in the room to\u00a0share their perspective, but also to listen to\u00a0implementation challenges from the participants.<\/p>\n Below are the key themes that came out of AIGG Europe for me.<\/p>\n Sovereignty\u00a0is the new priority\u00a0<\/p>\n Now with the AI Act and the revisions that came from the Omnibus behind policymakers and AI leaders in\u00a0Europe,\u00a0it seems their attention\u00a0has now fully pivoted to AI\u00a0sovereignty.\u00a0Irish\u00a0MEP and AI Omnibus rapporteur Michael McNamara\u00a0used his\u00a0keynote address\u00a0to highlight the importance of AI sovereignty for Europe. He\u00a0believes that Europe’s barriers to\u00a0accelerate\u00a0the adoption of AI are related to access and investment in\u00a0compute, capital and energy.\u00a0For more details, my colleague\u00a0Jedidiah\u00a0Bracy reported\u00a0on McNamara\u2019s keynote address.<\/a><\/p>\n McNamara was not the only one.\u00a0Lucilla Sioli, head of the EU AI Office\u00a0and tech entrepreneur and journalist Mark Little highlighted why investments in Europe’s digital infrastructure are important now,\u00a0identified\u00a0the current geopolitical climate\u00a0and discussed ways\u00a0to\u00a0leverage\u00a0Europe’s knowledge and talent in an AI era.<\/p>\n While sovereignty is often discussed in\u00a0the context of\u00a0technical\u00a0needs, I found it interesting that both Little and author and filmmaker\u00a0Agnieszka Piotrowska, who also keynoted,\u00a0addressed the sovereignty issue from the perspective\u00a0of\u00a0shaping AI based on European values. They both\u00a0spoke about the role humans must play in\u00a0channeling\u00a0these technologies.\u00a0Both\u00a0also\u00a0touched on\u00a0technology\u00a0not being neutral.\u00a0Agnieszka urged\u00a0us to think about how we can\u00a0be\u00a0active users in the development of these technologies instead of passive bystanders.<\/p>\n For Europe, technological sovereignty\u00a0isn’t\u00a0a protectionist\u00a0impulse, but rather\u00a0an assertion of democratic agency. As China and the U.S. race to\u00a0consolidate\u00a0AI infrastructure and define global norms, Europe’s bet is that a\u00a0rights- and\u00a0rules-based framework can serve as both a competitive differentiator and a model for the rest of the world.<\/p>\n AI governance implementation is upon us<\/p>\n With presentations ranging from the\u00a0cost of distributed\u00a0innovation to contracting and procurement\u00a0to\u00a0copyright and the intersectionality of digital rules,\u00a0speakers moved quickly past the question of what\u00a0the AI Act and other international AI\u00a0laws\u00a0say\u00a0and moved\u00a0toward\u00a0how to tackle real governance challenges in practice.<\/p>\n Assurance was a key theme with participants\u00a0sharing\u00a0their experience on how\u00a0organizations\u00a0are working to\u00a0build systems to integrate evaluation against\u00a0technical standards\u00a0and how to perform an AI\u00a0audit\u00a0in\u00a0agentic AI systems.\u00a0Additionally, how\u00a0does a general counsel work fluently with an AI engineer to verify that the right compliance boxes are\u00a0actually checkable?<\/p>\n While there are not perfect answers or best practices\u00a0established\u00a0for\u00a0all of\u00a0these topics, bringing practitioners together who are thinking through these issues and testing ways to navigate how to implement AI governance at scale was\u00a0really incredible\u00a0to experience.<\/p>\n I brought together\u00a0a panel on the AI Act Omnibus, which\u00a0included perspectives from Barry Scanell,<\/a> partner at William Fry and Irish AI Advisory Council Member, and Anita Prinzie<\/a>, AI standards expert. Scannel said, “If\u00a0harmonised\u00a0standards will define what technical compliance looks like, then legal professionals need to get comfortable operating in deeply technical territory\u00a0and vice versa.”\u00a0This, once again,\u00a0validates\u00a0and\u00a0provides\u00a0us with\u00a0a practical example that\u00a0AI\u00a0governance\u00a0is not a function that can be siloed.<\/p>\n The cost of distributed AI innovation<\/p>\n While regulators and policymakers\u00a0have\u00a0set\u00a0the\u00a0legal\u00a0framework,\u00a0AI governance professionals are facing a\u00a0parallel challenge.\u00a0AI adoption is no longer\u00a0centralized. Business units are deploying tools independently, often ahead of formal governance structures\u00a0while AI platform providers are offering tools with a wide set of capabilities.\u00a0This\u00a0results\u00a0in what many experts are referring to as “distributed\u00a0innovation.”<\/p>\n Piling on, where AI adoption is\u00a0slow in organizations, employees are\u00a0bringing\u00a0their\u00a0own\u00a0AI to work or as we’ve seen with previous SaaS technologies, they are making low-dollar value purchases like a monthly subscription\u00a0fee outside of the technology governance process, which is\u00a0leading to\u00a0a risky proliferation of\u00a0“shadow AI.”<\/p>\n While shadow tech,\u00a0and to an extent, distributed innovation has been a longstanding problem,\u00a0the capabilities and lack of guardrails in AI platforms\u00a0as well as\u00a0scale of issues can be enormous. Randstand Director\u00a0Global Legal and Responsible AI Martin Woodward<\/a> led a discussion<\/a> with BCG Partner and Managing Director Anne Kleppe,<\/a> Coinbase Ireland Chief Risk Officer Melissa Longmore<\/a> and Bird & Bird Partner Vincent Rezzouk-Hammachi<\/a> on this vital topic.<\/p>\n They shared that the risks are real, including, inconsistent standards, undocumented models, liability gaps and the erosion of the human oversight that both the AI Act and basic risk management demand.<\/p>\n The\u00a0panelists\u00a0argued that the\u00a0response\u00a0isn’t\u00a0to slow\u00a0innovation,\u00a0it’s\u00a0to distribute governance as fluidly as innovation has been distributed.\u00a0They also suggested\u00a0that traditional technology governance\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0fit for\u00a0AI.<\/p>\n Kleppe,\u00a0who has a background in\u00a0engineering,\u00a0discussed a shift-left approach\u00a0used in harness engineering\u00a0and said\u00a0that\u00a0while you are building the solution, you need to set the guardrails in real time.\u00a0It is\u00a0also\u00a0necessary to apply AI\u00a0governance\u00a0expertise\u00a0across functions rather than\u00a0concentrating\u00a0it in a\u00a0single\u00a0compliance team.\u00a0This means\u00a0building internal communities of practice where lessons from early deployments can be\u00a0shared and\u00a0creating\u00a0a\u00a0safety-first\u00a0environment\u00a0that allows practitioners to surface problems before they become incidents.<\/p>\n This is where the human\u00a0aspects\u00a0of AI governance\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the\u00a0element that no regulation fully captures\u00a0\u2014\u00a0becomes\u00a0essential.\u00a0To achieve this distributed governance model, the panel also pointed out the importance of AI literacy. Knowing how these systems work and how to manage them across the various roles that are involved with system management is essential.<\/p>\n What’s\u00a0next for the AI Act?\u00a0<\/p>\n While EU leaders may have shifted their focus to\u00a0sovereignty, practitioners are still\u00a0very focused\u00a0on the details of the AI Act. Even with timelines\u00a0for high-risk systems pushed back to 2 Dec. 2027, practitioners are realizing that this is still not a lot of time to develop their compliance strategy.<\/p>\n In my\u00a0panel on the AI\u00a0Act\u00a0Omnibus,\u00a0we reviewed the change in timelines, the updates to AI literacy requirements, the new “nudifier” rules, and the updated and enhanced\u00a0role of the AI Office.<\/p>\n