Oliver Steil: How Europe can turn AI investment into economic value
Quick read, Artificial Intelligence, Thought leadership
At the European Conference of German Business 2026 in Lisbon, TeamViewer CEO Oliver Steil joined Prof. Dr. Sabina Jeschke, CEO of KI Park, and Carlos Lacerda, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of SAP Southern Europe, for a panel on “Artificial Intelligence – Opportunities for the European economy.”
The discussion explored how Europe can translate its strengths in research, industry and technology into greater AI adoption, productivity and competitiveness.
Oliver focused on the practical path to getting there — scaling real-world applications, maintaining control and sovereignty, and ensuring infrastructure investment translates into measurable economic impact.
Some of the key insights he shared include:
- Europe needs to move beyond AI experimentation. The challenge is often less about the technology itself and more about how companies deploy it. Oliver emphasized the importance of choosing fewer, meaningful use cases, connecting them to measurable business outcomes and embedding AI into existing workflows rather than treating it as a separate tool. Through this approach, TeamViewer has seen the number of customers using its AI features grow from around 7,000 to more than 60,000 in a year, while AI-generated remote support summaries increased from roughly 22,000 to more than four million.
- Technology sovereignty is ultimately about choice and control. For customers, sovereignty becomes practical questions about where data is processed, who can access critical systems and whether they can change providers. European technology companies still need to compete first on product value, but trust, transparency and control can become important differentiators when the consequences of losing control are significant.
- Europe’s biggest AI opportunity may be at the application layer. While strong AI models remain strategically important, Oliver pointed to the economic potential created when AI connects with devices, machines, factories and frontline workers. Europe’s industrial expertise, engineering capabilities and domain knowledge give it an opportunity to turn AI into tangible improvements in areas such as maintenance, IT operations and technical service.
- Responsible governance does not have to come at the expense of speed. Rather than framing the AI debate as a choice between slowing development and racing ahead, companies can focus on what AI is permitted to do within their organizations. Clear permissions, human approval for sensitive actions and traceability can allow businesses to increase automation while maintaining control.
- Infrastructure only creates value when companies can put it to work. Europe is investing heavily in AI computing capacity, but infrastructure alone will not determine competitiveness. Oliver argued that the real measure of success will be whether that capacity translates into products, productivity and intellectual property, including by making AI infrastructure accessible beyond Europe’s largest companies.
Looking ahead, Oliver also pointed to AI-enabled industrial maintenance and service as one concrete opportunity for greater collaboration between Germany and Portugal. Combining Germany’s industrial and engineering expertise with Portugal’s environment for deploying and scaling new technologies could help companies reduce downtime, address skills shortages and make technical expertise more widely available.
Overall, panelists agreed Europe already has many of the ingredients needed to compete in AI. The next step is turning those strengths into scalable applications that deliver measurable value in the real economy.