Welcome to ICYMI – a weekly snapshot of European news stories that have given me pause for thought. ICYMI is a chance for you to go beyond the front-page headlines and find out what other stories may be worthy of your attention. This week:
- The UK government struggles to find a middle ground on AI copyright
- Trump excited by the potential of crypto
- The Swedish AI startup that has grown massively in a very short space of time
The UK government is adamant that Artificial Intelligence can play a key role in addressing the country’s sluggish growth rates. Yet once again, in common with governments across the globe, it has faced a backlash, as it attempts to create legislation to govern its use.
Its proposed AI Copyright law, first mooted at the end of last year, would allow tech companies to freely use copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models unless creative professionals and companies opt out of the process.
This move has seriously angered the creative industries who argue that artists should be compensated for their work being used to train AI. Last week over 1,000 musicians – including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Kate Bush – released a silent album as a protest against the proposed law change.
They were supported by the media. In an unprecedented move many UK newspapers sported almost identical front covers, featuring the same campaign imagery protesting government proposals and demanding MAKE IT FAIR.
“Tech companies use creative content, such as news articles, books, music, film, photography, visual art, and all kinds of creative work, to train their generative AI models,” reads the campaign website hosted by the News Media Association (NMA). “Publishers and creators say that doing this without proper controls, transparency or fair payment is unfair and threatens their livelihoods.”
This is a scenario that is likely to be ongoing not just in the UK but across the globe too.
Ironically in the same week OpenAI launched its AI video generation tool Sora in the UK, but only to ChatGPT paid– for subscribers. Users can create videos up to 720p in resolution, and up to 10 seconds in length simply by keying in a few prompts. Early experiments among the Tyto team suggest the production quality to be pretty good, so it will certainly cause some disruption to the business plans of traditional video content creators.
Crypto on the rise?
Over the past few years, the value of cryptocurrency has yo-yo-ed up and down depending on what governments, banks and other financial institutions have said about it. Now it appears that the fledgling digital currencies have secured the backing of the White House.
Crypto prices jumped this week after President Donald Trump said a US strategic reserve of digital assets would include bitcoin as well as lesser-traded tokens.
According to the FT, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Sunday that the strategic reserve would “elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden administration.” A reserve has been championed by crypto traders, who believe something akin to Fort Knox for gold, which would buy and hold bitcoin, would offer legitimacy to the asset class. Proposals are already working their way through state and federal legislatures. One Republican-backed Senate bill seeks to direct the US Treasury to buy 1mn bitcoin, worth roughly $94bn based on current market prices.
Cryptocurrency is also becoming something of a big issue in The Netherlands as De Hypotheekshop via BNR reports that an increasing number of Dutch homebuyers want to use their crypto assets to secure a mortgage.,
However, most mortgage providers remain hesitant since crypto is not legal tender and strict anti-money laundering rules apply. The mortgage sector lacks a uniform policy, but new EU regulations (MiCAR) may bring more transparency and acceptance.
Europe’s fastest growing startup?
What is the fastest growing startup In Europe? Techcrunch claims it could well be Swedish company Lovable and with good reason.
Lovable harnesses AI to enable anyone to create apps very easily, just using prompting. Apparently, anyone can build what it calls production-ready software without needing coding knowledge. In addition to building prototypes and websites, its GPT Engineer can ship fully functional web apps
The company recently announced $15 million funding in a pre-Series A round led by Creandum.
The more impressive figures are that it claims to have 500,000 users who are building over 25,000 new products daily and has now reached $17 million in annual recurring revenue, after scaling to 30,000 paying customers.
Those numbers would objectively make it one of the fastest-growing startups in Europe. Clearly a startup to keep an eye on.
Also, this week sees the key influencers in the telecoms industry descend on Barcelona for the 2025 Mobile World Congress. ITPro claims that the key thing on any executives minds is how to marry 5G with AI.
Under the theme of ‘AI+,’ speakers and sessions will focus on the practical deployments and impact of generative AI. The aim is to understand how it will create new levels of ‘natural interaction’ between people and computers – essentially, how it will develop more personalised experiences.
