Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis participated in a conversation with the Chief Executive Officer of ElevenLabs Mati Staniszewski, in the context of the “Panathēnea 2026” festival, held at the Zappeion Megaron. The discussion was moderated by Panagiotis Karabinis, Managing Director of Endeavor Greece. The Prime Minister’s remarks follow:
In his opening remarks, referring to the memorandum of understanding signed between the Greek government and Eleven Labs, the Prime Minister noted:
Well, first of all, this is amazing. I mean, congratulations, Lars, your team. I mean, what a great gathering. We’ve never had as many people in this space. And for those of you who are not aware of the symbolism behind this beautiful building, this is where 50-something years ago we signed the accession treaty where Greece joined the European Union as its 10th member. And I think it’s only symbolic that now we’re talking about AI, the future, about the dynamic Greek startup ecosystem, and about the partnerships that we can create with amazing companies such as ElevenLabs.
So what we did today was to expand the partnerships that we established with leading AI companies to improve public services. The idea is very simple. We take one of the leading, if not the leading, voice AI chatbot companies in the world, and we try to integrate their technologies in delivering public services through our Gov.gr site. So instead of typing your request, you just talk to the site, and hopefully you will get meaningful responses and engage in constructive conversations.
And of course, we can also use this technology to enhance the way we promote our tourism. And one last but very interesting dimension of these partnerships relates to the preservation of some of our more interesting linguistic dialects. So what does it mean for an AI agent to be able to speak in Cretan dialect? And how difficult would that be? And how can we preserve these linguistic, exceptionally interesting linguistic dialects? We can work with ElevenLabs to do that, but I should probably stop here and let our partners speak more about it.
When asked about his personal ambition to transform Greece from a laggard into a leader in the fields of technology and artificial intelligence, Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated:
Well, for those of you who are kind enough to visit from abroad, you should probably know that in 2019, when we first were elected into power, Greece was a complete technological laggard, across the board. Τhe provision of public services was abysmal, tonnes of bureaucracy, people complaining about the way you interact with the state.
So we made the digital transformation of the state our number one priority, and I think we have been able to leapfrog many European countries in terms of delivering a very convenient and user-friendly interface with the government through our Gov.gr site.
And I think this was a big success, but obviously it was just the beginning. When I was starting to think about AI and the transformational impact it can have as far as the business of government is concerned a couple of years ago, I told myself this is really an opportunity to dramatically increase the productivity of how the government actually does business.
And if I were to use a technological analogy, is that we need for the government a new operating system compared to the one we have been currently running, which means, of course, a complete rethink in terms of processes, in terms of data management, in terms of the level of ambition that we have when we use technology to deliver public services.
And we have a strategy. We have a Ministry in charge of Artificial Intelligence. We have a data policy, which is absolutely critical when it comes to leveraging open data. We have an open data policy. You can go on our Gov.gr site and look at the number of open data datasets that we have made available only over the past two weeks. This is an incredible treasure for many of the companies that may be joining us today who are looking for well-curated, high-quality data to develop their own models.
And we also intend to be at the forefront of smart regulation in terms of regulatory sandboxes and the other tools that we can use to encourage companies to work with us when it comes to the delivery of public services.
So we really want to aim high, and we want to use this AI revolution as a real tool to prove to people that we can put technology to good use, especially when it comes to public services. I mean, think about someone, an older woman who’s interacting with the government trying to get her pension issued -a process which has been greatly streamlined-, being able to talk to a smart and friendly AI agent to walk her through what is a complicated bureaucracy. This is a transformational change.
And that is why I believe that this digital transformation has been universally, across the country, acknowledged as a great success. And we’re just at the beginning. I think we’re just scratching the surface of what we can do.
When asked about Greece’s priorities in the field of artificial intelligence, the Prime Minister noted:
I would highlight three areas. First of all, be a leading country in terms of using AI smartly and responsibly to provide public services, develop a sovereign AI infrastructure that leverages the interest to invest in the country, whether it means our new supercomputer, which is in the process of being built in Lavrio, “Daedalus”, or even encouraging big data gigafactories such as a project which is launched by the Public Power Corporation in Western Macedonia.
So, we want to be part of the sovereign European infrastructure space, and I think we have enough investment opportunities and a well-thought-out strategy to generate interest for these types of investments.
And, of course, we have to speak honestly about smart regulation. I know that quite frequently in Europe we are perceived as a continent that does not foster innovation to the same extent as the United States does. And this is very true in terms of supporting startups, making it easy for startups to do business in all European countries. This concept of the “28th regime” is absolutely critical to encourage, for example, young Greek companies to be able to do business in Poland without having to go through many regulatory or bureaucratic hurdles.
But at the same time, we should also be very much aware that there is another side to AI that needs to be properly regulated. We mentioned the concept of a smart AI agent being able to emotionally engage with the person he’s talking to. So, if an old woman asking for a pension is angry, the AI should be able to pick this up and try to manage her emotions. But this is only the one side.
If we’re talking about AI companions and children and teenagers, then we’re talking about a completely different story. And as a leader responsible for leading the effort to regulate social media access for kids and teenagers, because doomscrolling is a reality and it is robbing our children and our teenagers from time and from the ability to develop social skills, the same will also be true about voice, especially voice, sort of integrated AI agents, and companions that will engage with our kids and our teenagers and build this complete hallucination that you have a relationship which is a substitute to a human relationship.
This for me is simply not acceptable. So I would expect that the next frontier, after we address the social media problem, will be to also look at the way we create a smart space for our children and our teenagers to use AI.
We are already trying and experimenting in our schools to do that. For example, we have partnered with OpenAI to provide tools that will help in a regulated environment our kids learn better, help our teachers to manage their workload better. This is the good side and the positive side of AI in education. But we should be very aware that every technological revolution also has a dark side that needs to be properly addressed and regulated.
When asked about the areas in which he would like to see Greece develop at a faster pace in terms of artificial intelligence, Kyriakos Mitsotakis underlined:
I think that when we sort of created our AI strategy, we looked at the horizontal provision of government services, we looked at certain verticals which are of great interest to me – healthcare, for example – where I think the net benefit of AI is clearly positive. And we’re working with many healthcare startups and giving them in a smart way access to our data to help them develop solutions that could be exported out of Greece.
Defence is another space where lots is happening. I can tell you that it’s always a struggle when we talk to our generals and our defence departments to encourage them to think not just in terms of the big platforms, the ships, the aeroplanes, but to really understand the transformation that AI is bringing about in the battlefield. And now we have a structure, a government structure that can give contracts to startups to build prototypes and to test them within the confines of the Greek armed services.
Civil protection is another area of great interest. You know, using AI for specific weather prediction, flood water management, fire management. These are some areas where I really want to go deeper and also encourage companies to partner with the Greek state to develop solutions that could then be exported abroad.
And of course, nourishing this amazing ecosystem of technology startups that is emerging out of Greece. I think what’s happening in Greece – and a lot of credit goes also to you, Panagiotis, and to Endeavor – has been truly transformational. If I just look at the dynamism, not just in this room, but across the startup ecosystem, this country has a lot to offer. It has amazing talent.
I would please like you to give a big round of applause to all the volunteers. They wear the red shirts here. They’re from our universities. We have more than 400 of them that make this event possible.
But we’re really changing the culture of how young Greeks view entrepreneurship. It used to be, it was a little Soviet. It sort of reminded me of Poland in the ’80s. Speaking about entrepreneurship and about profit in a Greek university was considered sacrilege, you know, even a decade ago. This has changed, and I think it’s a big, big transformation that is taking place in Greece.
When asked whether Europe is winning the global race for artificial intelligence or merely keeping pace with developments, the Prime Minister said:
Let’s say we have work to do on numerous fronts. We speak a lot in Europe about a term which is very technical, you know, Savings and Investment Union. What does this mean? The ability to raise private capital in Europe to support companies that are growing very fast. So I would not like successful companies, such as the one that you have built, to rely exclusively on U.S. venture capital and private equity funding, nor would I want for you to consider as the only sort of viable option a listing on a U.S. stock exchange, because simply in Europe we don’t have the scale to be able to raise capital for these types of companies.
So this is a big project for us. It’s technical, but also operationally very important for rapidly growing companies, because we speak a lot about public funding, European money, but we don’t speak enough about private funding. We have tons of savings in Europe, and these savings usually go to the U.S. only to be reinvested in Europe. This doesn’t make much sense, and I’m speaking here as a European.
And my second observation would be the regulatory framework, the regulatory environment. I think we need to pick our regulatory battles smartly. Do not overregulate. But if there are issues where we feel that we need to be more aggressive, such as, for example, the protection of kids and teenagers, issues of mental health, we need to double down on those areas without creating an overall landscape that is simply too complex for companies to do business in Europe.
Again, “the 28th regime” can be transformational, but we want to make sure it’s not just an empty shell. I want to make sure that if you register under the EU Inc. legal regime, that if you want to do business in Poland or in Estonia, out of Greece, you will be able to do it seamlessly without unnecessary bureaucratic complications. This is what will create a truly single market for digital services, which is absolutely necessary for our startups. Because we speak a lot in Europe about the single market, but the truth is that it’s still a work in progress.
Regarding the changes that artificial intelligence is bringing to the labor market and the economy in general, and how it will reshape the world in the coming years, Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated:
I’m afraid my crystal ball does not go that far, struggling to figure out how the world is going to be in 2030. What I can tell you is that AI, with all its tremendous productivity benefits, is going to create a massive disruption in the labour market. For example, the service that you’re offering is directly competing with traditional call centres, and we need to be cognizant of this reality.
So for me, the biggest challenge would be to smoothly manage these changes in the labour market in a way that we do not turn people against technology simply because technology is going to eliminate jobs which are currently here and will no longer be necessary in a new AI world. So, for me as a policymaker, this is something of great importance.
And that is why thinking about the shape of the labour market and preparing our young kids and our students for this changing labour market is so important. So trying to predict where the changes are going to actually take place, where the new opportunities will emerge, because there will be tremendous new opportunities when it comes to jobs.
And managing this transition is for me a very, very important priority, because what we do not want is a general perception that the benefits of AI accumulate disproportionately for capital or for the companies, in particular the big tech companies. If this happens, it will inevitably create a social backlash, and we need to be very much aware of that. And I think that all companies active in the AI space need to be aware that there is also a social responsibility dimension to their work.
And of course, it is our job, as is the case with any technological revolution, to sort of make sure that we accept the benefits while managing to the best of our abilities the downside and the risks.
In his closing remark, the Prime Minister noted:
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: And if I may add one final point, coming back to the question that you previously asked, what advice would you give to founders? Because it’s also pretty hot today. The first lesson my professor in entrepreneurial management gave me when I went to business school was that success in the entrepreneurial world is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. So we’ve done our perspiratory work today, as we’re all sweating a lot. Thank you for bringing this amazing group together.
