On June 3, 2026, President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on artificial intelligence, just two weeks after scrapping the previous one. The text promises to “promote American leadership in AI” and cut bureaucratic red tape for development. No surprise: the Trump administration wants the sector to run fast, with few rules. The problem is that this race risks leaving Europe – and Italy – stuck at the starting line.
Why it matters? Because AI is not a lab toy. It’s the infrastructure that will decide who leads productivity, defense, healthcare, and trade for the next decade. If the US continues to build closed ecosystems (proprietary models, American clouds, paid APIs), European companies become mere renters of technology. We see it every day: every time an Italian firm relies on OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic, it ships data and margins overseas. And if tomorrow usage terms change? If Trump imposes stricter licensing? You’re left without an engine.
For Italian SMEs, the risk is concrete and twofold. First: paying for tools that in five years could cost triple or become inaccessible. Second: losing control of your data in a market where GDPR compliance is already a competitive advantage. Here at Meteora Web, we work daily with small and medium businesses using ChatGPT to write copy or analyze data. They’re moving forward, but they have no Plan B. If the US ecosystem tightens, they’ll find themselves without a solid, Italian alternative.
Our position is clear: Europe cannot just regulate AI like a spectator. It must build its own.
The EU AI Act is necessary, but not enough. If all we do is set fences while others run, we’re left with an empty playground. We need public investment in open‑source models, incentives for European startups developing proprietary AI, and a sovereign cloud strategy. Most of all, Italian businesses need to think in terms of technological independence: not “which API to buy,” but “which solution we can own or co‑develop.”
What to do? If you’re a developer or entrepreneur, stop treating AI as a service to purchase. Start testing open‑source models (Llama, Mistral, Falcon), evaluate hosting on European servers, build a small part of your stack in‑house. In two years, when US licenses change or costs rise, you won’t be at anyone’s mercy. At Meteora Web, we chose Laravel and open‑source solutions for the same reason: owning the code means deciding your future. AI is no exception.
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