Everyone expected AI to dominate the conversation at Founders Forum Global but what surprised us was how little of the discussion focused on models, prompts or the latest product launches. Instead, conversations kept returning to a much bigger question:
Are organisations, institutions and societies actually ready for what’s coming next?
After attending two days worth of sessions and conversations with founders, investors and operators, Toby Strangewood and Alex Lamaro-McCrindle found five themes emerging repeatedly.
1. Trust is becoming the moat
Across enterprise AI, autonomous systems, consumer technology and creator businesses, one word kept resurfacing – trust. “Earned in drips and lost in buckets” was the phrase that really hit home.
Whether it was AI agents handling mortgages, autonomous vehicles in typhoons, or creators vs. synthetic influencers, every domain concluded the same thing: the technical problem is largely solved but the trust problem is not. As technology becomes increasingly accessible, trust may become one of the few competitive advantages that compounds over time.
2. The bottleneck has moved from technology to organisations
One of the most repeated observations was that the technology is moving faster than the organisations adopting it. Many businesses are seeing productivity gains at an individual level, but far fewer are translating those gains into meaningful organisational outcomes.
Why? Because people are often using new tools to do old things. The challenge is no longer implementing AI but redesigning workflows, incentives and operating models around it as well as understanding the growing gap between AI capability and workforce readiness. The fear is not being that AI won’t work but that organisations and individuals won’t adapt quickly enough to keep pace with it.
3. Europe doesn’t have a talent problem. It has an infrastructure problem.
Europe’s position in the global technology ecosystem was debated throughout the event and the consensus was surprisingly optimistic.
Few people questioned Europe’s ability to produce world class founders, researchers and engineers. Instead, what it lacks is a single market in software, deep capital markets, and pension funds willing to back domestic risk The talent is here, as is the ambition, however we need to ensure we have the infrastructure to support it.
4. AI’s biggest opportunity is still ahead of us
Currently, 5% of the global economy lives in the physical world yet AI has so far only touched the other 15%. Materials science, autonomous vehicles, robotics, agriculture, construction and energy were all industries cited as the real opportunity. The data land grab for physical environments is already underway and the companies that accumulate real world behavioural and environmental data in the next 2–3 years will be very hard to displace.
5. Power may become more important than intelligence
One of the more unexpected themes running through the event was energy. As AI adoption accelerates, infrastructure constraints are becoming increasingly visible. Not because there aren’t enough ideas but because there isn’t always enough power.
Data centres across major markets are already facing capacity constraints linked to energy availability. Several speakers suggested that the next great race may not be for the most powerful model, but actually, for the most efficient one.
This also raised another challenge which was of public acceptance. A recurring concern was that political and social resistance could slow the infrastructure investment needed to support the next phase of AI adoption. In other words, the technology may be advancing faster than society’s willingness to accommodate it.
Looking ahead
The most interesting prediction heard was, in essence, political. AI will become even more of a major European election issue in 2027-2028. Not because of safety concerns but because of jobs, energy prices, infrastructure ownership and economic competitiveness.
The debate around AI is moving beyond technology and becoming a conversation about economies, societies and who benefits from the value being created. Which ultimately felt like the defining takeaway from Founders Forum Global – the technology is ready but the question is whether organisations, institutions and societies are ready too.
