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Carina Stöttner at the Handelsblatt AI Summit: artificial intelligence needs leadership, values and room to experiment

December 31, 2023

At the Handelsblatt AI Summit 2023, leading figures from business, technology and research came together to discuss the future of artificial intelligence in the enterprise. In the middle of the debate: Carina Stöttner, managing director of Themis Foresight, futurist and sought-after speaker on technology, AI and foresight.

A high-profile panel with Mattias Ulbrich (CIO, Porsche) and Sven Mulder (Managing Director, SAP Germany) tackled the opportunities and the risks — and the conditions that need to be in place for responsible use of AI inside a company.

“AI needs a clear framework — technological, ethical and cultural. Only then can it be genuinely productive and genuinely trustworthy.”
— Carina Stöttner

Foresight meets reality: AI needs leadership and the nerve to shape it

The discussion made one thing clear: implementing AI doesn’t happen on its own. It takes leaders who can build both a technological vision and ethical guidelines into company strategy. Carina Stöttner emphasized the importance of giving people room to experiment:

“You have to bring employees along with you. Spaces where people are allowed to work with AI, play with it and test it take the fear out of it and build trust.”

Fear of AI was central to the conversation. Doomsday scenarios about an all-powerful superintelligence, in Stöttner’s view, miss the point. What’s needed instead is a more nuanced debate about the range of possible AI futures — and a realistic look at the opportunities, the limits and the room we have to shape them.

The EU AI Act: regulation without stalling innovation

Another central topic was the then-forthcoming EU AI Act. The panel agreed: regulation is necessary, but it can’t become an obstacle to innovation. Companies need clarity and reliability if they’re to build AI strategies that hold up over the long term.

Other takeaways from the summit

  • Jonas Andrulis, CEO of Aleph Alpha, predicted in his keynote that with full AI integration, as much as 70% of knowledge work could be automated.
  • Dr. Thierry Bücheler took a historical view of technological development, comparing today’s AI to the early days of aviation — a suggestion that the real breakthrough may still lie ahead.