Summary
The panel’s core message was that Europe, and especially Germany, may have a real industrial AI advantage because it combines proprietary industrial data, engineering expertise, process know-how, and operational experience that are not publicly available. Moderator Anne Decker opened by questioning whether this is already an “unfair advantage” or merely potential. Latifa Yakhloufi-Konstroffer argued clearly that Siemens Energy and similar European industrial companies do have a major advantage through sensors, machines, and non-public operational data, provided they can scale its use. Jan Philipp Haas agreed that Europe has IP and knowledge advantages, but said they are not yet “productized in an AI first way.” Thomas Saueressig pushed back against the idea that the AI race is already over, noting how quickly perceived leaders have changed since the ChatGPT moment at the end of 2022, from OpenAI to Gemini/Google to Anthropic, and argued Europe should adopt a more offensive, positive mindset.
Key Topics
5 key topics from Jan Philipp Haas, Thomas Saueressig, Anne Decker and Latifa Yakhloufi-Konstroffer at Bits & Pretzels 2026 | Founders Festival in Munich. Thicker branches were mentioned more often in the talk.
Key Takeaways
- Productize industrial IP into AI-first platforms.
- Adopt AI offensively instead of defaulting to risk aversion.
- Modernize legacy systems before layering advanced AI on top.
- Run sandbox experiments to accelerate organizational adoption.
- Use power users as ambassadors for company-wide change.
“We have sensors. We have machines. We have the data.”
Up Next
Next in agenda
Voice AI in the Enterprise — From Pilot to Infrastructure
Also on industrial ai
Industrial AI: From Experimentation to Execution
Also on germany
