The European Commission’s Apply AI Strategy, launched in October 2025, marks a decisive turn in EU technology policy. Building on the Draghi Report’s call for renewed industrial competitiveness and the Competitiveness Compass’s vision for a “CERN for AI”, the Strategy sets out to scale AI deployment across eleven strategic sectors, from healthcare and pharmaceuticals to automotive, mobility and public administration.
The strategy is a welcome step. It adopts an ecosystem approach, connecting use cases with infrastructure, data governance and skills needs, and avoids one-size-fits-all solutions in favour of tailored, sector-specific flagships. It keeps a firm link with the broader EU legislative agenda, including the AI Act and the Cloud and AI Development Act, and anchors investment in a common, open-source pan-European frontier AI model.
But as noted by CEPS Director of Research Andrea Renda in a recent analysis, the strategy also comes with significant implementation challenges: no dedicated budget, unresolved questions about whether AI Factories and Gigafactories will serve real industrial needs, a history of EU data-sharing initiatives that have struggled to deliver, and a critical link to the European Competitiveness Fund that remains unclear.
Tackling these challenges requires more than a policy document. It requires a well-coordinated, multistakeholder effort, with industry, researchers and policymakers working together to define what implementation actually looks like across each sector.
The CEPS Task Force on the Apply AI Strategy
CEPS is launching a dedicated Task Force to provide exactly that. The Task Force is a structured research and engagement platform, built and run by CEPS, which brings together senior executives, policymakers, industry experts and researchers to work through the hard questions the strategy raises and produce actionable recommendations feeding into the Apply AI Alliance process.
CEPS’s role is that of organiser, convener and analytical lead.
The Task Force team, led by Andrea Renda, Director of Research, and including CEPS researchers and external advisors across all three tracks, conducts all research, produces all briefings and session materials, and synthesises outputs into the Final Report and sector policy briefs. Participating organisations engage in the analytical process, contribute their expertise to structured discussions, and are credited as co-authors in the final deliverables.
The Task Force operates across three sector tracks:
- Track 1 Healthcare & Pharma: AI-assisted diagnostics, drug discovery, precision medicine, the European Health Data Space, and regulatory pathways under the AI Act and the Medical Devices Regulation.
- Track 2 Automotive, Mobility & Transport: Software-defined vehicles, autonomous driving, agentic AI for manufacturing and supply chains, connected vehicle data ecosystems, and harmonised type-approval frameworks.
- Track 3 Government & Public Sector: Workflow automation, citizen-facing AI services, public procurement of AI, sovereign AI infrastructure, and AI Act compliance for high-risk public sector applications.
All three tracks apply a consistent five-pillar analytical framework across key use cases, infrastructure requirements, data governance, flagship applications, and sovereignty and implementation roadmaps. They also engage with the shared EU policy environment such as the AI Act, the Data Strategy and Data Act, the Cloud and AI Development Act, AI Factories and Gigafactories, and the Competitiveness Compass agenda.
Timeline and participation
The Task Force runs from June 2026 to February 2027. For all three tracks combined, nine hybrid working sessions will run June through December 2026, followed by a drafting and member review phase and a final report launch in February 2027. Each session is followed by a detailed written overview circulated to all participants. Organisations may join one, two or all three tracks, and may register up to two representatives who can rotate across sessions.
Registration for the Task Force is open until 31 May 2026. To register please fill in the form found here and send it to [email protected] and [email protected].
For full details, including the participation fee structure, please check out the prospectus on the webpage here
