At TechBBQ, Europe’s AI conversations kept coming back to: Who’s actually in control?

“The age of AI agents isn’t really a story about machines gaining agency,” she continued. “It’s a story about humans deciding what to give up.” 

An attendee told me that one of the most refreshing sessions at the event was the panel with Signal President Meredith Whittaker, which I moderated and focused on whether privacy and AI can coexist. Whittaker didn’t mince words, and spoke out against AI assistants and agents being integrated into operating systems, like what ChatGPT is doing with iMessage.

She said this AI era is creating a “data collection apparatus” and that AI labs are using clever marketing to make people forget “about the collateral consequences” of acquiring so much data. 

“There is still a huge market need for privacy,” she said. “And particularly with the sovereignty concerns, we will have customers here.” 

Elsewhere, Emad Mostaque, co-founder of Stability AI and Intelligent Internet, sat on a panel with me about how an agentic workforce will impact the economy and what that means for personal sovereignty.

“Sovereignty is the ability to resist power being exerted over you,” Mostaque said. He spoke about the concentration of power in the hands of a few AI labs and said, “Inevitably, every country will be run by AI and that “the person that controls the AI controls the country.” 

Mia Negru, the advocacy and engagement director for the nonprofit Life With Artificials, sent me a message after the panel about what crossed her mind as she listened.

“If intelligent agents perform cognitive work and robots increasingly perform physical work, we may be approaching something much bigger than another technological revolution,” she said in the message. “We may have to rethink ownership, work, democracy, economic participation and eventually even who gets to participate in society.” 

But when the panels weren’t in session, people let loose at happy hours and rooftop soirées, where more lighter conversations eventually took over.

Lovable, Nvidia, OpenAI, AWS Startups, and HSBC came together to host a rooftop barbecue where I spoke to founders about Denmark’s growing tech hubs.

London’s Ada Ventures hosted a gathering at the cocktail bar Bird where I chatted with one health tech founder about increased innovation in the women’s brain health space. Then, there was the speakers’ dinner on an island in the middle of Copenhagen where the international press sat together and watched fire dancers. The after-party continued upstairs, where everyone was tempted to stay for one more drink until the bar tab closed.

“In a room full of conversations about machines, the most memorable moments still come from the simplest thing,” de Brever said. “Human connection, face-to-face, building relationships, sharing ideas, and reminding each other of what technology can never quite replace.”