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Event Replay: Building Ireland and Europe's AI Advantage - Innovation, Competitiveness and Skills
Posted Oct 08, 2026 | Views 14
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Speakers
George Osborne
Managing Director and Head of OpenAI for Countries @ OpenAI
George is Managing Director and Head of OpenAI for Countries at OpenAI. He is also Chair of the Board of Trustees at the British Museum and Chair of Coinbase’s Global Advisory Council.
George was the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 – 2016 and First Secretary of State from 2015 – 2016. The Right Honourable George Osborne CH received the Companion of Honour from Her Majesty the Queen in 2016.
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Jack Chambers
Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure & Digitalisation @ Government of Ireland
Jack Chambers is the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. He was appointed to this role on 23 January 2025. Before this, he served as Minister for Finance.
He is the Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin West. He was elected to Dáil Éireann on his first attempt in the February 2016 general election and was re-elected in the 2020 and 2024 General Elections.
Before entering the Dáil, he served as a Fingal County Councillor and as Deputy Mayor.
He has been an active member of a number of Oireachtas committees including Climate Action, Justice and Equality and the committee on Seanad Reform.
Born in Galway, Jack moved to Dublin West at a young age.
He is a Medical Doctor, having studied Medicine at the RCSI, and he holds an honours degree in Law and Political Science from Trinity College Dublin.
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Áine Kerr
Moderator @ Personally Speaking
Named as part of ‘100 women changing Ireland in 2021’ – The Irish Examiner
Named as one of “Ireland’s rising stars: the 50 ones to watch in 2023” – The Irish Independent
Áine was Co-Founder and COO of Kinzen; a technology company helping platforms detect and disrupt misinformation and disinformation. Kinzen was acquired by Spotify in October 2022. She was a director at Spotify, heading up its Content Safety Analysis team.
Previously, Áine led global journalism partnerships at Facebook based out of NYC. She was instrumental in helping to create and execute on the Facebook Journalism Project and led the creation of the News Integrity Initiative (NII).
Before Facebook, she spent five years at Storyful, where she served as head of content and political editor before being appointed managing editor in December 2011 at the time of the company’s acquisition by News Corporation. Áine spent over 7 years working as a political correspondent and news reporter with The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and The Irish Examiner.
Áine is a member of the Gaisce council; the organisation overseeing the President of Ireland’s Award, chair of Rethink Ireland (multimillion social impact fund) and chair of The Shona Project. She is also a member of the Irish Women’s Museum Advocacy Group that worked with Minister Catherine Martin on the creation of a process in 2023 to examine the establishment of a Women’s Museum.
In 2018, she graduated as a Fellow of the Sulzberger Leadership Program in Columbia University in New York City. She has a Bachelor of Education (B’ED) and a Masters of Journalism (MAJ) with Dublin City University [DCU].
She has certificates with Cornell University and Harvard University in financial accounting and project management, an Advanced Diploma in Leadership and Executive Coaching with Kingstown College and two Professional Diplomas in Management and Organisational Transformation with Institute of Management (IMI). She is currently completing a Masters in Business with UCC.
She was awarded Woman of the Year in Media 2018 by Irish Tatler Magazine, the VIP Eir Power of Women award in 2022 for digital and technology and a Woman of Vision award for business and technology in 2023. Her Alma Mater DCU recognised her with an Alumni Award in 2020.
In summer 2020, she brought her consummate skills to the radio waves as host of Reignite on Ireland’s national radio station RTÉ Radio 1, where she interviewed the likes of Gina Miller, Arianna Huffington, Jim Gavin, and Jamie Heaslip. Áine is also a regular guest host on The Business on RTE Radio 1.
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SUMMARY
George Osborne and Minister Jack Chambers joined moderator Áine Kerr in Dublin to discuss how Ireland and Europe can turn AI adoption into stronger economies and better public services. They explored the skills, infrastructure and leadership needed to put AI to work, opportunities in healthcare and education, and how to support workers and build public trust.
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CONTENT & TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 | Áine Kerr
And of course, as we sit here this afternoon, next to the historic round room, we do so at a time where Ireland is holding and hosting the presidency of the Council of the European Union. So this conversation comes with a particular urgency. We see it playing out in New York today with the UN General Assembly, high-level meetings, and a meeting of the Security Council. So this is a very, very timely conversation, I would say.
00:00:26 | Áine Kerr
And I hope what we'll be able to do in this conversation is give you a sense of Ireland's role in this, a sense of how Europe can partner together, but also what might a credible partnership between industry and policy makers actually look like with citizens and building their trust in mind. So with all of that, I hope you're going to give a lovely warm welcome now to Minister for Public Expenditure, Jack Chambers, and former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, and now Head of AI for Countries with OpenAI, George Osborne.
00:00:58 | Áine Kerr
Give them a lovely round of applause, please. Thank you. George, I might ask you to take the outer one, and Minister, we'll put you in the middle. Minister, thank you for taking the time. We know you're only days out from budget. But yesterday, Minister...
00:01:17 | Jack Chambers
[Inaudible]
00:01:18 | Áine Kerr
OK, good. The last mile, the last mile of budget. Hopefully, amidst all of the budget negotiations you're doing, you might have seen a global index survey yesterday, which I was surprised by, to see Ireland, I think, coming third in Europe, or third globally, and first in Europe when it comes to adoption of AI. And something like 63% of Irish workers say they are now using AI in the workplace.
00:01:46 | Áine Kerr
So I would have had an assumption before yesterday that there was a gap between access and use. Did that surprise you? Where do you think we're at today in a country like Ireland when it comes to the adoption of AI?
00:01:58 | Jack Chambers
Well, we're in a really positive place. So if you take the data there, we're third to Singapore and the UAE, and obviously leading across many European countries. I wasn't that surprised because we've had, I suppose our digital and technology ecosystem built over 20 years has embedded that as a, I suppose we had that first mover advantage across many previous areas where transformation was happening. If you take our approach in the public sector, we're actually currently surveying a lot of AI use across the public sector.
00:02:27 | Jack Chambers
And we haven't yet published that outlook or feedback, but we're seeing similarly really high levels of use of AI. Now there's obviously use of AI on a day-to-day basis in terms of people could use a chatbot or use something minor, but how does that minor usage actually translate to kind of transformative, productive use in the workplace? And we have seen really attentive focus in industry on this. So if you think of what Enterprise Ireland supports they've put in place in the last two years, we know some of the larger companies have placed AI usage at the centre of their wider growth strategy as well.
00:03:04 | Jack Chambers
And we're seeing even the disruptive effect in the labour market. There is some contraction in certain areas, but it is still a net growth around, across our enterprise ecosystem connected to increased employment because of, I suppose, the concentration of technology jobs. So I wasn't surprised. I think the, I suppose, the global nature of, in which indigenous businesses connected, but also the inward investment speaks to a lot of companies future-proofing their business model with AI at the centre.
00:03:34 | Jack Chambers
And compared to maybe some of the insularity which exists in other parts of Europe. So I think it was a positive sign, but we're still at an early phase, I think, globally around the relative adoption. And I suppose it's questioning, you know, specific adoption versus it actually playing a central role in how companies scale and integrate it in their usage. But it's a positive sign. And again, speaks to, I suppose, the broader resilience in the Irish economy that, you know, when we know it's going to have a huge impact in the future of work and also in the growth pattern of countries, the fact that the economy or the backbone of our enterprise economy are deploying it in that way is a real sign of resilience for the future too.
00:04:12 | Áine Kerr
George, that's a pretty positive outline there from the Minister. You've seen this from different vantage points, different cycles. We're in the so-called super tech cycle moment. How consequential do you believe AI is? Would you be as optimistic, positive sitting here today in Dublin as the Minister?
00:04:29 | George Osborne
Yeah, well, first of all, it's great to be here in Dublin and I thank the Minister for joining us. I, you know, I share the optimism. I mean, I think, you know, this technology is a really democratizing technology. It puts into the hands of people information and skills and services, which, you know, previously were not available to the general population and has the ability to better deliver public services and create a more productive economy and solve a lot of the problems that, in Europe, we have a lot of angst about.
00:05:02 | George Osborne
So I am positive about that, and I'm, I guess, an optimist, that I think the world will find a way to regulate this in an appropriate way. And I think you can take quite a lot of positivity out of the discussions at the moment in New York, that the world knows there's an issue and is working to try and resolve it, even though the world is in a fragmented state geopolitically.
00:05:29 | George Osborne
And then I'll just, you know, finally say, you know, this company, OpenAI, has a huge belief in and commitment to Ireland. I mean, we are doubling down on Dublin. We currently employ about 100 people here. We've got plans to employ another 250. That's a big increase in the workforce, and I think it will grow beyond that. We are taking, you know, moving into a big new building here in Dublin, and we see a long-term future here.
00:05:57 | George Osborne
And it's a company that has lots of options in the world and could have gone to other places, but it's chosen here because of, you know, the stability of the economic and political regime here, the history of embracing technology and working with it, a warm and open welcome to the company, and an access to a lot of very talented people who can help us build this business and build this technology.
00:06:27 | George Osborne
So, you know, coming here, you can... It's always great to be in Dublin, but it's also an important part of the future of OpenAI, this city.
00:06:37 | Áine Kerr
Minister, you can hear from George there, that intentionality around creating international headquarters, and we know lots of other tech companies have followed suit. Historically, for the Irish government, you've wanted to create this hub of innovation. I think the Irish government is also trying to pitch Ireland now as this hub for regulation as well, that you can do both. What might that look like? And really, ultimately, this is all moving very, very fast, and we'll get into the speed and the dynamics of that and how do you build guardrails and regulations around it.
00:07:07 | Áine Kerr
But can Ireland do both, be centre of innovation and centre for regulation, and who ultimately needs to have ownership, accountability of how this tech evolves?
00:07:17 | Jack Chambers
So, yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, if you look at how we've moulded the EU AI Act in an Irish context in the distributional model amongst national regulators has provided, I think, a sensible response rather than it being kind of centre stage in one particular regulator. But I think we've managed that in many other sectors. Business and innovation requires certainty of regulation and also certainty of intent in terms of the political process.
00:07:45 | Jack Chambers
And I think Ireland has always provided a balanced, proportionate response, acknowledging the risks, which are well documented from AI, but also knowing it can be a significant force for good in how we deliver public services, how we build trust in a level of innovation, which is here with us to stay. And what we're trying to do in a piece of feedback I've gotten the last two years as we've tried to increase the digitalisation focus of my own brief has been to ensure how the public sector, you know, reflects the drive in the private sector to embrace AI and utilise it across different fields.
00:08:21 | Jack Chambers
So it's not a question of either or. We've always been strong on partnership, on openness, and also acknowledging the world's transformation and shift that's occurring before us. And I think we've always provided that reasonable, proportionate voice in a European context and how we've provided a regulatory model or, you know, the AI sandbox as well and other innovations to allow for technology to move whilst building trust.
00:08:47 | Jack Chambers
And ultimately, that's what this is about. That's connected to the conversations that are happening in the United Nations as well.
00:08:51 | Áine Kerr
George, to pick that up, you're travelling to multiple countries and markets and lots of governments, you can have your best laid out strategies and initiatives, but how you actually go and execute and scale on an idea that might be well-meaning in a blueprint, in a strategic document. How does Ireland compare, do you think, out there at the moment to other countries? And what differentiates a country that is actually doing it rather than talking about it when it comes to everything the Minister does?
00:09:21 | George Osborne
No, well, I think, as I say, Ireland is a pretty strong jurisdiction at the moment if you're a company like ours and you want to build out your business. And as the survey you referred to earlier shows, the Irish people, you know, are getting on and adopting and using the technology and Irish businesses too. And I know the Irish government is adopting it and thinking about innovative ways to do so in the future.
00:09:48 | George Osborne
I think when you travel around, you know, what you see is different countries doing different things. For example, Greece has really powered ahead with the adoption of AI into its schools, and the Greek education system is not particularly easy to run, it's got lots of rural communities, islands, and so on, but they've kind of driven out of the Prime Minister's office in Athens the adoption of AI into the education system.
00:10:15 | George Osborne
In Canada, Mark Carney has set out a plan for every Canadian student to have access to an AI agent. And he's pushing that through the Canadian political system. A small country but a member of the EU, Malta has given AI to all of its citizens, you know, it's working with us so that every single citizen who completes an online AI training course gets access to the very top AI models available in the world.
00:10:42 | George Osborne
So you can see lots of different jurisdictions trying things, I should mention Estonia, long had a history of being a kind of digital adopter, again powering AI in its government. United Arab Emirates, you mentioned, it's one of the jurisdictions where there's a heavy AI adoption, you know, we have a deal there where we're working with their public administration. So countries trying lots of different things. I think you need two things, would be my observation as also someone who, you know, used to see the other, on the other side of things, how things work in government.
00:11:14 | George Osborne
I mean, the first is you need a clear plan, and although you say lots of people talk about AI, it's true, but there are, not all governments have a clear plan of how we're going to spread AI adoption in our economy and in our own administration. And then you have to be able to execute. I mean, as always in government and politics, because you can, you can have a plan, but can you deliver the plan? And, you know, obviously it's not always straightforward to take established public administrations and get them to change and think about new ways to deliver public services, but if your goal is to deliver better public services within ultimately constrained budgets, this is one of the tools that are available to a minister like you,
00:12:00 | George Osborne
and it's a powerful tool. And I think you're completely correct in saying, and it's not in tension with regulation, or how, you know, think about how we manage this technology. It works hand-in-glove with it, because you're trying to get the best out of the technology whilst managing and avoiding the risks.
00:12:20 | Áine Kerr
So let's drill down a little bit deeper into that creative tension there between, you mentioned the benefits for society and the pros, and ultimately we're all familiar with the headlines, particularly of recent weeks, around risks and mitigations. And we know at the UN General Assembly, as I mentioned earlier, the expectation is that AI will be on the agenda today. There's an emergency meeting of the Security Council. I think your own OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, is due to appear there today.
00:12:49 | Áine Kerr
How should we think about that balance? Because there's this sense of urgency to move at speed and innovate and realise the opportunity in the moment. And on the other hand, we have some folks sounding alarms and concerns and saying we need to slow the pace here, understand unintended consequences, understand the safeguards, the regulations. So how do you think about that balancing act?
00:13:13 | George Osborne
Well, first of all, it's a good thing that the United Nations and the Security Council is meeting to discuss this, that there's a strong engagement with the companies involved, so that the CEO of OpenAI is addressing the Security Council and invited to be part of it. And I would say this is an industry that is actually asking for greater oversight and greater global coordination.
00:13:40 | George Osborne
So it's not an industry trying to run away from that, it's actually saying, yes, and only this week we were putting out more ideas for how that could be done globally. But we're not a democratically elected government, and so it must be for governments and lawmakers to make those decisions which we then comply with. And that's how things should be in the world. I think when it comes to the sort of broader question, you've got to start, this is a new technology, it's rapidly developing, the power of the technology is rapidly growing.
00:14:12 | George Osborne
And I think you have to start with, you know, proper understanding of what the technology is, what it's capable of, and try and establish some common global standards. Because you can't really have global control or coordination or regulation unless you have some common global approach to evaluating the models, providing independent audit of them, trying to come up with common standards.
00:14:38 | George Osborne
And that's where OpenAI has proposed that you build on a model of some of the existing safety and security institutes, for example the UK created the AI Security Institute, and that you get these institutes around the world working together on a common kind of set of approaches to evaluating the technology. Because if you don't have that sort of common language on understanding technology, then you don't really have a common way of exchanging information and deciding, you know, what you want to regulate, what you want to stop, what you want to encourage and so on.
00:15:12 | George Osborne
So that's the first step. And then, you know, ultimately, of course, what you also want are the technology superpowers, including the United States and China to be working together. I would say, you know, I observe there are positive steps in that direction, despite the difficult relationship and geopolitics that these two, you know, great nations are actually trying to work out how to get on with each other and how to discuss this technology.
00:15:39 | Áine Kerr
The UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, yesterday at the UN General Assembly talked about working towards agreeing a single set of global principles and standards, which seems to align with what you're talking about, to increase our preparedness and to ensure that AI development is safe. Is there merit in that? Is that ultimately it? Or does it need to get beyond what he's talking about there in global principles and standards to something more pragmatic?
00:16:02 | George Osborne
Yeah, look, I think you have to, you can't, you know, the world is, you have to be realistic. You can't, you're not going to create overnight, like some globally accepted rules across all jurisdictions on AI. I think, you know, it's work in progress, but the work is in progress. And what the British Prime Minister was calling for, what Ireland is doing by choosing to have an AI summit here in Dublin in the next few weeks is, let's get that common understanding.
00:16:30 | George Osborne
Let's get some commonly accepted rules. Let's work with the companies so that we understand, because they will ultimately understand the technology best. And then we can work out how we, you know, promote and encourage the things we want to see this technology do and prevent the things we don't want to see this technology do. I mean, if you take, you know, an area that has become very kind of current at the moment, which is cyber defence, cyber security, you know, models like OpenAI's cyber models are unbelievably powerful at spotting weaknesses in your defences, patching the holes in your networks and protecting you.
00:17:13 | George Osborne
And that's a kind of very positive thing. We're working with the EU. We're working with NATO. We're working with others to make sure that technology is available. But of course, the flip side of that is AI has the potential to fall into the wrong hands, to be used by adversaries or bad actors. And so, you know, it's a good example of where the technology has a lot of upside, but the potential for misuse. And we want to make sure that we're working with the good guys and that the good guys have got their act together.
00:17:45 | George Osborne
And Ireland is one of the good guys.
00:17:47 | Áine Kerr
Minister, I'd be curious to get your response to all of that and that idea of some shared principles between industry and governments. And you'll probably have heard Antonio Guterres himself in his final address this week saying those countries leading the technological revolution must share information. And went on to talk about cooperation on testing, evaluation, work towards common safeguards. It sounds very idealistic. Is it doable?
00:18:11 | Jack Chambers
I worry about that. Even some of the rhetoric around it isn't positive. I mean, I think we need to kind of create that coalition of the willing, which has happened in other eras of change and transformation where those countries that want to move at least can form the basis of common principles and others will follow. But look, that's mixed messaging. And I think the UN are correct to put this front and center. We're correct in putting it front and center in the context of the EU presidency, because ultimately the downside effects of this could undermine everything we value today in terms of a democratic society, the freedoms, the rights, the fundamentals that people don't see as being undermined.
00:18:55 | Jack Chambers
And to the point there that yes, AI can play a role in terms of cyber defense, but on the flip side, if it's in the hands of adversaries or smaller actors could have significant impacts on countries and democracies and the world as we know today. So the risks are huge. I think the fact that the companies themselves are flagging a slowdown and a necessity to do that and for governments and democratic institutions to take some level of control shows the risks.
00:19:23 | Jack Chambers
I haven't seen the level of that in other eras. And we need to take that seriously and need to move beyond the kind of winning a global race to actually, again, valuing humanity and the potential risks that are at stake here. And if everyone isn't willing to move, those that are should move to set kind of the ground in terms of common principles and standards. I think the EU has a willingness to do that.
00:19:48 | Jack Chambers
I think it's trying to get other global actors to move likewise. But the fact that the UN is having those productive discussions is in itself a positive sign and you know hopefully diplomacy will see the day through.
00:20:00 | Áine Kerr
Okay and everything we've talked about over the last 20-25 minutes does require really strong foundational work to be done so I'm thinking you know your infrastructure, your semiconductors, your processing powers, your sustainable energy, digital connectivity, resilient systems, George, cyber defense which you mentioned earlier but then this idea of meaningful national choice and when we think about all of those foundational work, the fundamentals, the capabilities, the safeguards, how should European governments including here in Ireland think about that meaningful idea of choice and control while benefiting and enabling the best available technology?
00:20:41 | George Osborne
Well, we live in an interconnected world. So for you know six years I was a finance minister and the idea that you could operate a financial system entirely within your own country unconnected with the rest of the world's financial system was fanciful. And you know if you're the finance minister in 2010 you had a very strong reminder of that. So, yeah, you know we live in an interconnected world. We live in an interconnected world with technology.
00:21:08 | George Osborne
So I don't think any one country including you know China and the United States is able to operate alone. And that is particularly true of you know European countries and more medium-sized countries. So it's a question of where you want to sort of play in the AI stack. What you know what are the things you're going to be good at? You know, are you going to be a place that's particularly good at chip manufacturing?
00:21:36 | George Osborne
Are you going to be a place that's particularly good at designing chips? Are you going to be a place that's the training of AI models? Are you going to be a place that is a fast adopter of AI? You know there are lots of different kind of places you can play and and what I would say is choose a place where you think you can excel and that will give you leverage over the global debate about the future development of this technology. And I would say you know for me to observing from the outside but you know Ireland you know has a reputation for being an open economy, a pro-business economy, an economy that has worked with technological adoption in the past, a place where a company like OpenAI wants to build out its operations,
00:22:21 | George Osborne
locate its EU headquarters, a place where it can find skilled people to work and a country that has a kind of outsized reputation for influencing global debates you know and and punches above its, you know, simply its kind of population share of the world. And so all those things kind of play to Ireland's advantage and I think all countries are trying to work out where exactly they kind of sit in this system.
00:22:53 | George Osborne
And for a lot of countries there's a big kind of FOMO but I feel you know I feel less I honestly feel much less of that here in Ireland than I do in some other places.
00:23:03 | Áine Kerr
Do you think he's right, less FOMO? And where do you think we should play in his spectrum there of build the models to you know whether it's the hosting of data centres where where should Ireland play in all of that?
00:23:16 | Jack Chambers
I think it's our great industrial and economic opportunity and I think it's genuinely limitless. When you take you know the pattern of how we've invested in education and what's possible with the skilled workforce of today, we can definitively answer that question in terms of you know the upskilling and the reskilling of the broader kind of base of employees. Secondly, with the specialist expertise we have in the technology sector and then the broader global leadership which sits in Ireland who are positive adopters of AI and digital technology and how they can sensitively deploy AI in a way that we're actually seeing in terms of the existing usage.
00:23:53 | Jack Chambers
Secondly then, you know we've a pro-enterprise government as was mentioned and we believe in building energy infrastructure and digital systems that aren't constrained by a level of ideology that exists in part of the opposition here and which exists in parts of Europe which is kind of against digital deployment and against digital infrastructure. We want to see greater deployment of digital infrastructure, which again has you know which complements the you know the specialist concentration of some of the decision makers in Ireland from in terms of their HQs.
00:24:25 | Jack Chambers
And I think that's our that's our challenge is to if you look at what the Department of Finance have announced the great upside opportunity for Ireland in terms of future growth and prosperity is to very much be on that wave of growth. And I think you know up to now we've shown that if you look at our broader growth pattern and the concentration on GDP it's very much connected to the actual investment happening here. But we need to make sure that the state future-proofs infrastructure delivery and energy, water systems in particular, that need to provide for this level of digital technology, which is going to exist throughout global economies.
00:25:03 | Jack Chambers
And we need to answer that question. And we need to be small, agile, and responsive enough to respond to that question, which has been our strength at points of weakness and at a point of economic growth. We need to ensure that we answer those questions.
00:25:18 | Áine Kerr
George mentioned talent. And I think we are known here in Ireland for having an incredible workforce and graduates. You mentioned education as kind of your baseline there. So how do we need to think, though, about those jobs of the future, reskilling current workforces, but our young people going through college, that we're thinking about that differently? Because all the time, it does feel like if OpenAI and all of these tools are going to resolve that we can do things better and faster in a more intelligent way, well, then our superpower for our young people, for all of us sitting in a room like this, is going to be our emotional intelligence.
00:25:55 | Áine Kerr
It's going to be our curiosity. It's our ability to learn quickly and still be the human in the loop. So how do we need to think about a skills-based approach and investing there here in Ireland?
00:26:05 | Jack Chambers
And that's happening. So Minister James Lawless has placed us at the centre of his plan in terms of further and higher education, where AI skills of the future permeates its way right through our education system, but also that much greater focus on lifelong learning. So we support that upskilling and reskilling. Similar engagements with the Business Employers Confederation, IBEC, and ICTU around that AI question being at the centre of our discussions there.
00:26:34 | Jack Chambers
And then even in the public service, we've seen a strong uptake of some of the courses and opportunities that, again, builds that workforce of the future, but again, supports people in that transition. So all of our focus in both the Department of Education and further and higher education is to deliver across that skills base to ensure that the specialist expertise shifts, because obviously the technical courses or computer science courses of 10 years ago are very different for the next 10 years around what specialist expertise is required.
00:27:06 | Jack Chambers
And similarly, then, in terms of the workforce across the board, the type of job they're doing is different too. So it's about ensuring that AI becomes a centre stage across all levels of education. And I think that lifelong education piece would be critical, and that has been a central focus of government in the respective strategies that we've published.
00:27:25 | Áine Kerr
George, what the Minister is talking about there, it feels like it does require new levels of collaboration between the world of academia into industry, industry into policy makers. This is constant kind of feedback loop for really to build with that future in mind. And I wonder, you know, the Minister talked there, like this is what feels like a specialist area sometimes. So how do you make what's sometimes specialism more mainstream, but doing it in a way that feels truly collaborative now?
00:27:50 | George Osborne
Well, I think it's becoming more mainstream as the technology is being kind of more widely adopted. I mean, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, being an AI researcher was quite an obscure thing, but, you know, full credit to the people who decided to do that 10, 15 years ago, because they've, you know, sit at the top of this profession now. But so I think, you know, it's becoming a more widely understood technology, more people are working in it.
00:28:16 | George Osborne
I think it's quite easy, you know, as you've seen it with other industrial transformations to get gloomy about jobs. It's quite easy to sort of say, well, you know, are these jobs going to survive? It's much harder to spot the new jobs that are going to be created, the new opportunities that are going to be created, but they are, they have historically been created in when there's a shift in technology. And I think, personally, there will be again today some of the early evidence is that actually it's creating jobs and it's starting to show through in the productivity numbers of European economies and in the United States.
00:28:53 | George Osborne
So I'm pretty optimistic about that. You know, it should be, as I sort of said earlier on, a big democratising technology. It's putting into the hands of regular citizens, you know, the kind of tools, the kind of power, the kind of ability to get things done that were previously either not available to anyone or at least only available to elites and the very rich. Just think of, you know, access to the law has often been an issue in Western democracies.
00:29:22 | George Osborne
How do you get great legal advice? And now, you know, you can use this technology to help you, whoever you are. You can use this technology to help you with your health care and manage your health care. You can use this technology to, you know, work out how best to save money in a time when many people's family budgets are constrained, you know. This technology is really powerful, a really powerful tool for managing family budgets.
00:29:48 | George Osborne
It can help a small and medium-sized business with a lot of its administrative burdens. And it can help government departments deliver better public services without going to the budget minister and saying, please can I have some more money?
00:30:00 | Jack Chambers
[Inaudible]
00:30:03 | George Osborne
So I think it's got an enormous potential. And to some degree, it's already happening. I mean, there's over a million Irish people using ChatGPT every week already. As you were saying earlier, this is one of the most AI-adopted nations already. So in some ways, it doesn't need the kind of permission of the companies or the government to say get on with it. The people of Ireland and the people of Europe are getting on with it anyway.
00:30:28 | Áine Kerr
There will be people sitting in the audience, I imagine, going, yes, I can imagine the potential, the benefits you're talking about, but they're still going to go back to their workplaces this afternoon with people who probably have still a fear of what job displacement could look like. So how do we all need to think about the promise of that future and yet dealing with the real-world fears sometimes that people will have?
00:30:49 | George Osborne
I mean, look, there's clearly going to be changes to the workforce and changes to the nature of jobs. I think people have shown that they're adaptable, but you've got to help people make those changes. And the best thing you can do is spread knowledge of how best to use AI tools, make sure that people have the opportunity to learn how to use those tools, that there's, as the Minister was saying, lifelong learning.
00:31:18 | George Osborne
It's actually easier with this technology than some previous technologies. It's very empowering and it's quite straightforward to use for people. And governments and industry have got to help people through that transition. But I think anyone who sits here or anywhere and says, I know exactly how things are going to pan out on the economy or jobs front, they can't possibly know that.
00:31:47 | George Osborne
So there's also a kind of flexibility. I'd say we also have a regulation of all of this. You don't want to kind of lock into stone or into aspic a sort of fixed way of regulating a technology that in a year's time might look very different. So you want to create bodies and institutions with authority, with knowledge, establish a network around the world, establish those global standards so that you can be adaptive yourself. Because that's often, you know, the risk here is the private sector, the people, citizens, businesses, you know, move very quickly with this technology and government and public administration is sort of left behind a bit.
00:32:28 | George Osborne
And then there will be a real disconnect in our society. And so public administration, I think, needs to lean into technology adoption.
00:32:36 | Áine Kerr
Minister, you were nodding along there when George was talking about operational efficiencies, how this might help support the job of public servants, where it might make meaningful difference and benefit society and citizens. Where do you think it can make a meaningful difference? Like you are someone who's constantly talking about driving for those efficiencies so that public service can play to their super strengths. So what ways do you see this showing up?
00:32:58 | Jack Chambers
Well, I think the first thing is that you need to have a tighter budgetary constraint to incentivize efficiencies. And that's something we're seeking to do as well, because if every organization is incentivized to get more, then the incentive to change isn't as apparent. And that's something we're seeking to do. But secondly, we are seeing significant changes. So we've got good practical examples, and we're currently surveying all elements of agencies and departments on their practical use of AI, which is much higher.
00:33:24 | Jack Chambers
I won't set out the number today than I would have thought if you asked me two weeks ago. Now, the kind of the qualitative use and the productive use versus just general use is obviously something that's...
00:33:36 | Áine Kerr
Is it similar to what we're seeing in workplaces, that 63%?
00:33:39 | Jack Chambers
It's strong. It's actually strong. And I think that speaks to, we published last year, if you asked a public servant 12 months ago to use AI, there probably would have been a fear of the unknown. Am I allowed to use it? Am I encouraged to use it? We published AI guidelines on the responsible use of AI in the public service. I think that gave the protection to public servants to opt in and kind of a basis of when to use it and when not to use it and to provide that kind of risk framework at a management level and when to take it on.
00:34:07 | Jack Chambers
But as someone who did medicine before politics and as a doctor, the ability of AI to transform a public health system like we've never imagined is before us. And the ability of it to really deliver that personalized health care with advanced therapeutics is incredibly exciting for the future of health care in our country, particularly as demographic pressures emerge, demand is increasing.
00:34:33 | Jack Chambers
But how can we realistically manage that demand in a way that, in terms of our public finances as well? And I think we've huge opportunity for transformation there. So us being able to digitalize our health system, which we're doing with Minister Carroll MacNeill around once and for all taking the leap. So we have the data, the digital infrastructure, there's huge opportunities there. But also around the basic issues of where citizens are waiting four months for an answer for something that should take a week.
00:35:01 | Jack Chambers
It could take four hours now. And that means the cohorts of workers who were part of that big level of administration or bureaucracy can be up-skilled or re-skilled to be people-facing in a way that is about working with people to actually change the nature of their work, which is more rewarding and isn't just engaged in a process, it's actually engaged in interaction with the state.
00:35:26 | Jack Chambers
So I think there's a huge opportunity to provide a quality of public services that was unimaginable or undeliverable in the past, with just the level of expenditure and the positive disruptive effect of AI is something we want to see happen in a way that gets buy-in from workers too. And everything we're doing in terms of our digital public services plan is to work with people and how we change the nature of work in the public service. And then obviously build that public trust that it's not, people aren't interacting with the state in a way that they see it as some bad actor somewhere, which obviously we have to build that trust over time.
00:36:01 | Jack Chambers
But I see a huge potential to deliver public services in a way that hasn't happened forever. And AI is that empowering tool to deliver that.
00:36:10 | Áine Kerr
Anyone listening to you today, I'm sure are struck by your sense of optimism. Use the phrase, you believe it can be a force for good. You've got the practical example of healthcare there while realising yes, you got to build up that trust and embed trust from the get go with everything. There is this window of opportunity given the European presidency and Ireland holding it. What does success look like if Ireland is going to influence AI and that future trajectory with that intentionality and that balance that you've talked about today?
00:36:42 | Áine Kerr
What will success look like in 2027 and beyond if in 13 years time, Ireland gets that European presidency back? How do we know that we made a mark here in this moment, in these months?
00:36:53 | Jack Chambers
Well, I think the first instance is how do we build on the conversations that are being had in the UN and elsewhere on kind of global principles and how is the AI summit here a catalyst for further improvement of that? Because ultimately that's a measure of how AI will be controlled and built upon for the future and ultimately building public trust around it. From an Irish perspective though, it has to be about how we build on that level of adoption which has happened.
00:37:20 | Jack Chambers
So in terms of public sector usage, how is it in a real accelerator for reform, for public service transformation, for service delivery? We're even looking at it from a procurement perspective, how do we have greater adoption in AI in terms of how we procure public services and deliver infrastructure in our economy? And I think in 13 years, whoever was behind in this race will have a slowing economy and ultimately higher levels of unemployment because they haven't met the skill needs of the future.
00:37:50 | Jack Chambers
And we're really cognizant of that in terms of building that workforce that's different but also doing it in a way that ensures we bring people with us. And I think though the kind of the global approach which is reflected in the AI summit will hopefully help progress that broader conversation.
00:38:06 | Áine Kerr
George, similar question to you. European presidency, how does Ireland leave its mark given its convening powers, influential powers over the next few months?
00:38:15 | George Osborne
Yeah, well, sadly, Britain's not in the EU anymore despite my best efforts. So I'm not sure I'm best placed to give you...
00:38:21 | Áine Kerr
You need a whole other 40 minutes for that.
00:38:23 | George Osborne
So I don't think you need my advice particularly on how to handle the EU. I mean, again, I observe from a distance, it feels to me, you know it's an opportunity, the presidency of the EU, but it's a limited period of time. You can't pick every subject and try and advance your agenda on everything. You've picked one topic as far as I can see, centrally AI, which is the hot topic.
00:38:51 | George Osborne
It's extremely well-timed. You've got the summit coming as the minister was saying, just a couple of weeks after the conversations happening in New York. And so that's a real opportunity to at least get, you know, the European Union corralled and maybe alongside it, bring along European countries that aren't in the EU and work with them.
00:39:12 | Áine Kerr
Is there one practical thing you would leave us with this afternoon? Minister, I'm gonna ask you the same question. One practical thing over the next year Europe can do to build everything we've talked about over the last 40, 45 minutes, that accelerated, trusted, productive AI adoption?
00:39:30 | George Osborne
Well, what I would like is, you know, I think at the moment we're still in the stage when some countries are doing some really interesting things and then other countries are noticing that, going, ooh, look what Greece has done with the schools, or look what Canada is doing for its students, and I would like there to be lots of European examples that, as I travel to the rest of the world, I can say, you should see what these other countries in Europe are doing.
00:39:56 | George Osborne
This is what Ireland's doing, this is what Britain's doing, this is what's happening in Germany or France, whatever, and I think, you know, in some ways, because the topic is so daunting, how do I transform my public services, we haven't talked here about, too much about cyber, how can I manage my cyber defenses, but rather than trying to do everything all at once, my advice would be, kind of, get going and start on some areas of transformation, and then that will spread good practice, and I would say the other thing, you know, from what I can see elsewhere in the world, it really helps if, as I think it is in Ireland, it's driven from the centre, from the centre of the government, this is not just some part of government, this is the whole of government effort, and so those would be,
00:40:40 | George Osborne
you know, that's what I would do, I would, you know, you'd want to get, you know, the tongues wagging, look what Ireland's done, why aren't we doing that here, and get that conversation going around the European Council table and across the world.
00:40:53 | Áine Kerr
Okay, so some best-in-class examples. Minister, what would you say, and give me more than one, but...
00:40:59 | Jack Chambers
Well, I think, when I look at the European Union, I think the challenge is that there's so many different missions across different areas, some of which that may impede adoption of AI in respective systems, public or private sector, and the need to clarify direction in terms of, you know, is AI the great transformer? I believe it is, and will revolutionise and make the European economy more competitive, but there are other forces within the EU which don't necessarily facilitate or promote that, or promote where it can be a force for good, so the need for clarity in terms of direction is critical, and I think that's, there's greater alignment around that, but it is about, you know, I think, as George said, the, you know, moving with, kind of, with worked examples and us being able to spread that adoption.
00:41:46 | Jack Chambers
For me, it's across the public service and ensuring that we don't have ad hoc examples because of good leadership in places, that it's something that we mainstream and builds that wider trust, and to be an example of that in a European context, and that's something we're ambitious to do this year and in 2027.
00:42:03 | Áine Kerr
Well, thank you both. I think, hopefully, I speak for our audience, when I say it was a very generous 40 minutes, hopefully. We did what we said we would do at the start, in terms of giving people a sense of the scale of the ambition, but how you think and build with trust and intentionality in mind, so thank you both. Please give a lovely warm round of applause, Minister for Public Expenditure, Jack Chambers, and former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, and now Head of AI for Countries with OpenAI, George Osborne.
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