At TechBBQ in Copenhagen, participants spent the conference arguing not only about what to build with artificial intelligence, but who should have control over the models and infrastructure that power it. The event carried the theme "Emerging from Agency" and concluded on August 27; throughout panels, side conversations and social events the issue of European technological sovereignty kept resurfacing.
The topic gained urgency after Anthropic’s models Mythos and Fable were made unavailable to users outside Europe earlier this year. That incident prompted many European founders, investors and operators to consider whether to rely on externally hosted AI power or to try to own more of the stack themselves.
Mixed reactions from startups
Startups at the conference described divergent impacts from the Anthropic disruption: some said it significantly interrupted their engineering timelines, while others treated it as a manageable nuisance. Several attendees noted that although dependence on U.S. and Chinese providers is workable for now, it could create serious geopolitical and operational headaches for Europe in the future.
Ellen de Brever, an angel investor and head of partnerships at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Cellerator, said TechBBQ’s theme felt particularly timely as the debate shifted from ‘‘what AI can do’’ to ‘‘what we are prepared to let it do’’. She emphasized that discussions focused less on making machines smarter and more on human judgment and who remains behind the wheel.
Privacy concerns and agentic systems
One of the event’s most talked-about sessions featured Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, in a panel I moderated exploring whether privacy and AI can coexist. Whittaker warned against the integration of AI assistants and agents into operating systems — citing examples like ChatGPT’s iMessage integration — and described the current era as building a large “data collection apparatus.” She accused AI labs of using persuasive marketing to obscure the collateral consequences of vast data accumulation.
"There is still a huge market need for privacy," Whittaker said, adding that sovereignty concerns will create local demand in Europe for privacy-preserving solutions.
Political stakes: who controls the country?
Emad Mostaque, co-founder of Stability AI and Intelligent Internet, joined a panel about how an agentic workforce might reshape economies and individual sovereignty. He argued that sovereignty means resisting power being exerted over you and warned about power concentrating in a few AI labs. Mostaque provocatively said that "inevitably, every country will be run by AI" and that "the person that controls the AI controls the country."
Mia Negru, advocacy and engagement director at the nonprofit Life With Artificials, messaged after the panel that if intelligent agents take on cognitive tasks while robots handle more physical work, society may face questions beyond another technological cycle. She suggested we may need to rethink ownership, work, democracy, economic participation and who gets to take part in society.
Broader agenda and social life
Panels also addressed the future of women’s health, a summit on Nordic–African cooperation in innovation and investment, and strategies to attract more growth capital into Europe. AI threaded through many of these conversations, but the emphasis was often on human judgments, regulatory frameworks and funding rather than purely technical advances.
Outside formal sessions, networking events highlighted the enduring value of in-person connections. Companies including Lovable, Nvidia, OpenAI, AWS Startups and HSBC co-hosted a rooftop barbecue where founders discussed Denmark’s expanding tech hubs. London’s Ada Ventures organized a cocktail at Bird bar, and I spoke there with a health-tech founder about growing activity in women’s brain health. The speakers’ dinner took place on an island in central Copenhagen, where international press attendees watched fire dancers and later continued the evening at an after-party.
Takeaway
TechBBQ made clear that European tech communities are not only building AI products but actively debating who should own and govern the technology. While panels examined privacy, regulation, economics and geopolitical risk, attendees repeatedly returned to the same point: control over AI has political and social consequences, and face-to-face networks remain crucial in shaping how the region navigates them.
