At TechBBQ in Copenhagen, the conversation among investors, founders, and operators from across Europe wasn\u2019t just about what to build with AI, but who should control it. No matter where you were during the annual Nordic conference, from onstage to cocktail hours and after-parties, the chatter kept coming back to how Europe can gain more control over the technology powering AI. <\/p>\n
That question of sovereignty \u2014 which fittingly matched this year\u2019s theme of \u201cEmerging from Agency\u201d \u2014 was especially timely after Anthropic\u2019s AI models Mythos and Fable became unavailable to users outside Europe earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The incident led many in the European ecosystem to think seriously about what it means to own the models and the infrastructure underpinning this AI wave, instead of renting that power from the U.S. and China.<\/p>\n
One startup exec told me the Mythos and Fable incident seriously disrupted his software team, while another shrugged it off. Sure, the startup exec said, relying on two other geopolitical powers for AI might one day cause Europe severe headaches, but for now, everything is still pretty much OK.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTechBBQ\u2019s theme of agency felt particularly timely this year as the conversation shifted from what AI can do to what we\u2019re actually willing to let it do,\u201d Ellen de Brever, an angel investor and head of partnerships at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Cellerator, told me during the conference, which wrapped up August 27.<\/p>\n
There were panels about the future of women\u2019s health, a summit on how the Nordic and African ecosystems can collaborate on innovation and investment, and talks about how to get more growth capital into Europe. AI was an underlying theme in many of the conversations, but as de Brever pointed out, \u201cthe debates weren\u2019t about smarter machines, but about human judgment and who gets to stay in the driver\u2019s seat.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe age of AI agents isn\u2019t really a story about machines gaining agency,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a story about humans deciding what to give up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An attendee told me that one of the most refreshing sessions at the event was the panel with Signal president Meredith Whittaker, which I moderated and focused on whether privacy and AI can coexist. Whittaker didn\u2019t mince words and spoke out against AI assistants and agents being integrated into operating systems, like what ChatGPT is doing with iMessage.<\/p>\n
She said this AI era is creating a \u201cdata collection apparatus\u201d and that AI labs are using clever marketing to make people forget \u201cabout the collateral consequences\u201d of acquiring so much data.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still a huge market need for privacy,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd particularly with the sovereignty concerns, we will have customers here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Emad Mostaque, co-founder of Stability AI and Intelligent Internet, sat on a panel with me about how an agentic workforce will impact the economy and what that means for personal sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\u201cSovereignty is the ability to resist power being exerted over you,\u201d Mostaque said. He spoke about the concentration of power in the hands of a few AI labs and said, \u201cInevitably, every country will be run by AI\u201d and that \u201cthe person that controls the AI controls the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mia Negru, the advocacy and engagement director for the nonprofit Life With Artificials, sent me a message after the panel about what crossed her mind as she listened. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf intelligent agents perform cognitive work and robots increasingly perform physical work, we may be approaching something much bigger than another technological revolution,\u201d she said in the message. \u201cWe may have to rethink ownership, work, democracy, economic participation and eventually even who gets to participate in society.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But when the panels weren\u2019t in session, people let loose at happy hours and rooftop soir\u00e9es, where more lighter conversations eventually took over. <\/p>\n
Lovable, Nvidia, OpenAI, AWS Startups, and HSBC came together to host a rooftop barbecue where I spoke to founders about Denmark\u2019s growing tech hubs. <\/p>\n
London\u2019s Ada Ventures hosted a gathering at the cocktail bar Bird where I chatted with one health tech founder about increased innovation in the women\u2019s brain health space. Then, there was the speakers\u2019 dinner on an island in the middle of Copenhagen where the international press sat together and watched fire dancers. The after-party continued upstairs, where everyone was tempted to stay for one more drink until the bar tab closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a room full of conversations about machines, the most memorable moments still come from the simplest thing,\u201d de Brever said. \u201cHuman connection, face-to-face, building relationships, sharing ideas, and reminding each other of what technology can never quite replace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TechBBQ.jpg?resize=1200,800″] At TechBBQ in Copenhagen, the conversation among investors, founders, and operators from across Europe wasn\u2019t just about what to build with AI, but who should control it. No matter where you were during the annual Nordic conference, from onstage to cocktail hours and after-parties, the chatter kept coming back to how Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,62],"class_list":["post-2120689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-techcrunch-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2120689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2120689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2120689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2120689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2120689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2120689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}