The AI Act is a crucial tool for conveying principles and guidelines for the protection of citizens in the use of AI. However, in the creation of the specific rules that will follow, it is essential to involve actors with technical and business skills, as the decisions made will have a significant impact on the country’s economic progress
The debate that has developed in recent months around the Artificial Intelligence Act to establish a framework on the use of artificial intelligence at the European level is an opportunity to redefine the boundaries of what is proving to be one of the most pervasive technological revolutions ever.
As a spokesperson for hundreds of Italian companies in the ICT Supply, Assintel – through its Think Tank dedicated to AI – wishes to provide its contribution in this phase, to make the AI Act the best possible regulatory framework for our entrepreneurial ecosystem: a guideline that is the expression of the most innovative potential of progress and at the same time of its most conscious application. The AI Act serves as a necessary shared tool to convey principles and guidelines for the protection of citizens in the use of AI, especially in such a rapidly changing scenario.
However, it is essential to actively involve actors with technical and business skills in the creation of the specific regulations that will follow, as the decisions made will have a significant impact on the economic progress of our country.
The AI Act for a virtuous and more sustainable development of the market
The AI Act can be an opportunity to support a virtuous and more sustainable development of the market: both on the supply side and the demand side. Incidentally, I do not use the term “sustainable” by chance, because Artificial Intelligence can also be an extraordinary vehicle for accelerating the energy transition, with solutions that allow for savings not only in time but also in resources and energy. But that’s not all. In a general sense, through artificial intelligence applications, companies adapt to market changes by transforming their processes and products, and in turn, they modify market conditions by introducing a renewed push in terms of technological progress. Only a solid and at the same time sufficiently flexible ecosystem to accommodate such a transformation can ensure an adequate role for Italy in international markets.
For this reason, Institutions must promote innovation that manages to accommodate the ethical demands of citizens, bringing them closer to the companies that will take charge of them in the coming years, rather than irreversibly alienating them by interposing limitations that are too rigid or too lacking in perspective.
Obstacles to the digital transition of SMEs
The obstacles that Italian SMEs face today in adopting solutions that accelerate the digitization process are predominantly economic – with often inadequate financing measures – and cultural: that is, there is a lack of real understanding of the impact these technologies will have in the immediate future and the risk of being excluded.
As clearly emerges from the Assintel Report 2023 survey, for one in three companies the main obstacle is economic-financial resources, and for another third of companies, it is instead the lack of culture and digital skills.
Entering into the details of AI, only 7% of companies have launched (or planned) AI initiatives, and these are mainly large companies. Yet it is now well established that to be competitive on the market, it is not enough to be more productive; it is also and above all a matter of cost savings and revenue growth: two mirror aspects on which AI has a measurable impact already widely demonstrated by studies on the subject.
Reflexively, the main limits that supply companies encounter today in developing AI technologies are, on one hand, the lack of a real support network – economic, legal, and supply chain – and on the other, an approach that is still too insensitive to the differences between international big players and small to medium-sized enterprises. In France, for example, institutional investors have committed to allocating 7 billion euros to finance technological innovation in AI, effectively betting on a path of national emancipation in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Present and future of AI in the digital Made in Italy ecosystem
In Italy, the lack of adequate funding for companies risks slowing down a more profitable experimentation of Artificial Intelligence and, consequently, the implementation of infrastructures and methodologies that would make the use of AI more sustainable in the short and long term.
We are not only talking about public investments but also about concessions made accessible by private credit institutions, measures that can support the entrepreneurial fabric and make it more reactive to innovation at a crucial moment like this. Because ultimately, with a view to lasting and widespread growth, it is necessary for the market to be mature enough to bring supply and demand together. Indeed, Italian small and medium-sized provider companies need – even more than contingent financing – a solid network of adopter clients, which in turn must be in a position to grow through the use of artificial intelligence. On the other hand, excessive sanctions and deadlines that are too tight for companies that fail to adapt to a constantly evolving regulatory framework risk zeroing market competitiveness, effectively favoring only the large players who can afford to manage them, with a much more pervasive impact.
It is also necessary for institutions to provide companies with adequate tools and legal support to navigate the provisions, to understand how to implement the guidelines within the national regulatory context.
But above all, to foster a sustainable long-term impact, it is necessary to ensure the participation of supply SMEs in defining the standards to access conformity certifications with the new regulations, with a graduated and forward-looking approach and with timelines adapted to the real capabilities of all businesses.
Conclusions
To ensure that AI can truly contribute significantly to our country’s growth, it is essential to invest in cutting-edge technologies that allow for efficient data exchange while respecting privacy. Innovative companies, in close collaboration with scientific research conducted by major national and international university centers, are already deeply involved in a path that places these crucial requirements at the center. Currently, we are exploring increasingly privacy and human-first artificial intelligence paradigms, including Federated Learning and the use of synthetic data.
The final goal is to develop systems intrinsically designed to face the challenge of an AI aligned with the European vision of the future, based on principles of responsibility and sustainability.
