Yesterday (June 9th 2026) was the second day of TedX Berlin conference, the independently organized event under the umbrella of TED. Ted, might be the single event whose materials in retrospect have had biggest the impact on me as a person, and I believe on a lot of others. Stroke of insight by Jill Bolte Taylor is still my favorite talk. So I am, kinda, a fan of Ted and as such of TedX as concept, so in that regard I might be a bit subjective. The first day was a day of panels and exchanging debates, and the other the very well known format of the presentations at the Berliner Ensemble. Ted talks are not only for the substance they spread, but to me they are an establishment of an amazing storytelling.
The topic of this year's TedX Berlin has been of course AI and it went under the name A World With AI. At first, it sounded sassy in order to make a full commitment to its success, so to some extend I went with scepticism and lower expectations. Everyone has an opinion about AI, I understand that, and it is still a nicely lucrative buzzword, so I guess that is where that feeling came from. But TEDx Berlin not only did not disappoint, it inspired me and filled me with energy and spirit I feel I had been missing since the end of the pandemic.
The first day was centered around Europe's position amidst everything that is AI. Europe's one thing at the top that we are proud of is regulation (even non-EU countries follow that as their aspirations are EU of course), which for something as undefined and powerful as AI actually is a burden. The people that should have explained when all of that regulation and theory starts to become valuable practice, unfortunately did not convey that message. However, there were a plenty of business representatives that talked about their first-hand experiences. Europe is so great with regulation that had the EU Act in place since mid-2024, when barely anybody understood the impact of what post-2024 AI had on the industries. So it regulated something that didn't fully understand. As funny as that resonated with the audience, the impact that that "unregulated" regulation is often negative, an example mentioned was Mistral's AI series B that was closed in USA. Regulation does have an impact on people and businesses. If Europe wants to keep innovation in Europe, should focus on improvements that will make this regulation to the point and rapidly adaptable to the changes that technology brings.
There was an amazing panel on culture. The discussion made direct parallels between Germany, India and other countries. My takeaway was "Germany's changing but still slow; the predominant sentiment is being unsupportive for other's progressive ideas, "just because".
There was a complete change of energy in the room that i felt, when Cris Turner from Google talked on one of the last panels of Day 1, and I personally really liked the vibe. One of the interesting questions brought up was whether agents could help simplify bureaucracy, or as a parallel for Germany, whether the Bürgeramt could one day issue passports without human intervention. 🙀 But Cris brought a great mental exercise in the debate: everyone should start building an agent of themselves, because this could become the work representative of the future. Loved this session.
My favorite session of the day was “AI at Work” at the end of the day. It raised a very relevant question: do we really use AI, or are we still only using a fraction of it at its periphery? The use of AI among European companies is still very low, around 6%, which means there is a lot of opportunity, although regulation is yet to fully kick in. To start improving things, the tease said, leaders should start influencing teams the best possible way: lead by example. So far the sentiment is that leaders just delegate and hype out.
My general feeling was being overwhelmed by the storytelling skills of the speakers and of course the topics they covered. The subtitle read: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and indeed, AI can be intimidating. But as with any other technology, it is not scary by itself. The people using it can be. Just as AI will not create democracies, but it can definitely support them, AI can easily be seen as useful tool in health, fraud detection, and education.
And at "education" was my highlight of the day: a project called Guided. Built by three entrepreneurial 17-year-olds who created a solution around the "broken school" (as they said) concepts they noticed no longer work in a world with AI. Amazing spirit, goosebumps, and hope for a strong future with that kind of youth.
The data is there, but do we use it? Even without AI, automation is kicking in and the world is changing. Having a hammer in our hands does not make everything a nail, even though it might look like one.
I left home with more creative seeds to drive my creativity and think more about where we are. I choose to be a tech-optimist, AI is the tool that will be default in the future ahead.