Multilingualism is a cultural cornerstone of Europe and firmly anchored in the European treaties including full language equality. However, language barriers impacting business, cross-lingual and cross-cultural communication are still omnipresent. Language Technologies (LTs) are a powerful means to break down these barriers. While the last decade has seen various initiatives that created a multitude of approaches and technologies tailored to Europe's specific needs, there is still an immense level of fragmentation. At the same time, AI has become an increasingly important concept in the European Information and Communication Technology area. For a few years now, AI, including many opportunities, synergies but also misconceptions, has been overshadowing every other topic. We present an overview of the European LT landscape, describing funding programmes, activities, actions and challenges in the different countries with regard to LT, including the current state of play in industry and the LT market. We present a brief overview of the main LT-related activities on the EU level in the last ten years and develop strategic guidance with regard to four key dimensions.

There are many stereotypes and preconceptions about artificial intelligence, but AI should above all be considered as a tool, albeit a highly sophisticated one that is constantly evolving and improving as our human intelligence deepens. What makes AI different from any other type of tool is the ability to learn and act accordingly. In the same way that human intelligence has allowed us to flourish as a species by turning our collective hand to pretty much anything, it is the ability of artificial intelligence to improve so many different aspects of our lives that is so exciting. AI is already a day-to-day reality for many of us, from apps that know what kind of music we like without us asking to'personal assistants' on our smartphones or in our homes that can seemingly answer any question we may have in a matter of seconds. Yet these simple examples are just scratching the surface of what AI can do.

He leads the High Level Group on Industrial Technologies, which on 24 April released a report called Re-finding industry – Defining Innovation to make recommendations on EU research and innovation priorities for industry in the next funding programme. Your report says that AI should be designated as a key enabling technology in the next funding programme, which means it is classed as a priority policy area. What does this mean in practice? 'Artificial intelligence is something relatively new and a field of strong competition, not only in the world, but also in Europe. It is therefore essential to find a common way ahead to encourage our research.