• Despite its unquestionable timeliness and potential, the AI Act should do more to promote SME-led innovation.

• SME-tailored sandboxes, standards, fines and digital infrastructure are some of the proposals that could help advance in this direction.

After an overwhelmingly positive response from both SMEs and SME associations, the European DIGITAL SME Alliance (DIGITAL SME) has presented the AI Act Open Letter to the relevant MEPs working on this file. Our AI Open Letter was signed by 60 companies and business associations at the forefront of European innovation.

The document consists of a list of proposals to help ensure that the Act is SME-friendly and better aligns with our members’ interests. This marks the culmination of a meticulous process over the last few months, in which the inputs from the members of our Focus Group AI have been crucial to properly capture and reflect the needs of European SMEs working in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) realm.

It is no secret that building a legislative framework that successfully boosts European digital innovation is not an easy task. With ever-growing concentration of capital and innovation in a handful of companies, striking a balance between being a technological frontrunner yet respecting the highest standards of privacy, sustainability and trustworthiness can become extremely complex.

However, Europe cannot afford to lag behind. Hence, DIGITAL SME welcomes the upcoming AI Act as a great starting point to advance towards greater digital sovereignty, where users, providers and developers of AI are supported to carry out their activities in the European Union, enjoying top quality resources and infrastructure, as well as the highest standards of legal certainty, safety and security.

The need to put forward future-proof policy that ensures Europe’s long-term competitiveness and strategic autonomy cannot be understated. The European Commission shows the path forward in the introduction of the AI Act, which essentially consists of a classification of AI applications in categories ranging from minimal/no risk to unacceptable risk, laying out provisions to tackle them accordingly. Nevertheless, SMEs have stated since the beginning that the legislative framework did not fit their needs and characteristics.

Taking stock of the above points, DIGITAL SME starts the back-to-school season with the presentation of the AI Act Open Letter. The document outlines how the AI Act could be amended to better pave the way towards European innovation, happening today in SMEs from all over the continent. Its key demands are as follows:

1. Providing guidance and support to SMEs in the implementation of the AI Act
2. Making sandboxes mandatory and fine-tuning them to SMEs
3. Actively including SMEs in standard-setting
4. Adapting fines to the size of AI providers and developers
5. Making sure the AI Board goes beyond compliance and into supporting innovation
6. Balancing obligations between large technology developers and smaller providers and users
7. Making digital sovereignty a priority by investing in European-based digital infrastructure

If you want to know more, you can read the Open Letter here. While the deadline to sign has passed, we warmly encourage you to join our efforts in making sure it is heard far and wide.

If you are an SME that is interested in supporting this cause or finding more information about our work on AI, you can join our Focus Group Artificial Intelligence (FG AI) here.