The impressive list of signatories includes co-CEO of payments company Adyen, CTO of airline Lufthansa, CEO of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, CEO of French bank BNP Paribas and CEO of insurance operator Axa amongst many others. 

They state that their companies collectively employ hundreds of thousands across the content and that they felt “compelled to speak out” because the incoming AI regulations are putting Europe’s AI “ambitions at risk” and jeopardize “not only the development of European champions, but also the ability of all industries to deploy AI at the scale required by global competition.”

In no uncertain terms, the letter “urges” the EC to “propose a two-year ‘clock-stop’ on the AI Act before key obligations enter into force”.

Regulation v innovation

It asserts that the balance between regulation and innovation in the EU is “currently being disrupted by unclear, overlapping and increasingly complex EU regulations.

And suggests that the proposed pause should apply to regulatory obligations being imposed on high-risk AI systems that were due to enter into force in August 2026, as well as those applying to general purpose AI models whose entry into force is imminent, being scheduled  for this August.

Implied in the letter is that EU companies have not been given a reasonable amount of time to implement the new regulatory requirements.

And the letter explicitly calls for a “decisive pivot toward a more proportionate, innovation-friendly regulatory approach” by the EU stating that an “innovation-friendly implementation strategy” along with “regulatory simplification” would potentially benefit “SMEs, start-ups, scale-ups and large established companies alike”.

Given the prominence of some of the companies and signatories there is no doubt that EU decision makers will need to take this intervention seriously. The big question is whether what is in effect direct criticism of the EU’s safety first approach to AI, which has thus far prioritized regulatory speed, will actually lead to a change in tack by the Bloc’s politicians and regulators.