The European Commission has unveiled a €1 billion package to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence across ten strategic sectors, positioning the initiative as the deployment counterpart to the EU’s AI Act and part of a wider effort to reduce dependence on non-EU technology providers. The “Apply AI” strategy was announced on Wednesday, 8 October 2025.
According to the Commission and contemporaneous reporting, the plan mobilises existing EU programmes—principally Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme—to finance concrete AI use-cases. Brussels expects additional co-financing from Member States and private investors to amplify the impact.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen framed the initiative within a sovereignty and competitiveness agenda, stating that AI should be “made in Europe” and adopted at scale. The priority sectors named by the executive are healthcare, pharmaceuticals, energy, mobility, manufacturing, construction, agri-food, defence, communications and culture. The strategy highlights near-term projects such as a network of AI-enabled screening centres in healthcare and the development of “agentic” AI for manufacturing, climate and pharmaceutical applications.
The announcement follows a spring action plan to ease compliance burdens for start-ups working under the EU’s AI rules. That workstream aims to reduce regulatory frictions while maintaining the framework of the AI Act, which entered into force in August 2024 and is applying in phases through 2026–2027.
Under the AI Act’s timeline, prohibitions on certain “unacceptable-risk” practices and AI literacy obligations have applied since 2 February 2025. Obligations for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models became applicable on 2 August 2025. Most remaining obligations take effect by 2 August 2026, with extended transition periods for some high-risk systems embedded in regulated products until 2 August 2027. The Commission has also launched an AI Act service desk and issued guidance for GPAI providers.
“Apply AI” is designed to shift the focus from compliance to deployment. The Commission’s digital strategy materials and recent funding decisions indicate three practical levers: sector packages pairing funding calls with reference implementations; support for SMEs and mid-caps via testing facilities and advisory services; and coordination with national programmes to align procurement and co-investment. The Digital Europe work programme for 2025–2027, amended this year, is one of the vehicles expected to underpin these measures.
Officials have signalled mobility and automotive as early beneficiaries, in line with calls from the Commission President to advance AI-enabled vehicles and pilot projects across European cities. Although those remarks were made days before the “Apply AI” launch, they point to the type of deployments the executive wants to see—safety-critical, infrastructure-integrated systems scaled through coordinated public-private trials.
Healthcare and energy are poised to be test cases for measurable impact. In healthcare, AI-assisted screening networks are expected to support earlier detection and shorter waiting times. In energy and climate, applications include grid balancing, demand forecasting and emissions monitoring. Manufacturing pilots emphasise agentic systems for process optimisation and predictive maintenance. These are areas frequently cited by the Commission and industry as offering near-term productivity gains if deployed within the AI Act’s guardrails.
The funding headline is limited compared with national programmes in larger economies, but EU officials argue that the combination of shared infrastructure, common technical templates and aligned procurement can compress the time from pilot to production, particularly for smaller firms. The success of the strategy will depend on the volume of national and private co-financing that follows, and on whether projects can clear regulatory and interoperability hurdles at speed.
The Commission’s broader digital policy timeline shows a clustering of AI measures in 2025: publication of GPAI guidance and a Code of Practice, the creation of an AI Office within the Commission to supervise GPAI rules, and the launch of an AI Act service desk. “Apply AI” sits within that sequence, intended to ensure that regulatory certainty is matched by practical adoption pathways.
In sum, the EU’s approach now combines binding rules with targeted deployment funding. The immediate indicator of progress will be whether the initial €1 billion—augmented by national and private contributions—translates into operational systems in hospitals, factories, energy networks and transport within the AI Act’s phased application window.
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