As AI reshapes advice and client relationships, UBS puts human autonomy at the centre of its approach. The test is whether people retain the power to challenge the system.
UBS presents artificial intelligence as a way to strengthen human advice, improve productivity and deepen client relationships. Its public policies explicitly recognise human autonomy and oversight. That creates a demanding question: as AI shapes what advisers see, recommend and prioritise, how can the bank demonstrate that human judgement remains effective, independent and accountable in practice?
The tension begins before the final decision. A person may approve the advice while the system has already shaped the available choices.
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The Dutch state plans to almost halve its remaining stake in ABN AMRO. For investors, the move advances privatisation after a strong share-price recovery. For customers and businesses, it raises a different question: as ownership becomes more private and banking more automated, who ensures that commercial efficiency remains compatible with care, accountability and effective protection?
The sale changes the ownership balance. The harder test lies inside the bank: whether its decisions can be explained, challenged and corrected when they affect people’s money and access to financial services.
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In December 2023, Hungary blocked agreement on a revision of the European Union’s long-term budget that included €50 billion in support for Ukraine. On 1 February 2024, EU leaders reached an agreement, with Hungary joining the other member states. Europe eventually acted, but only after another summit and weeks of uncertainty.
The episode captures the tension behind Ursula von der Leyen’s call to extend qualified majority voting to certain policy areas. A national veto can force governments to negotiate and accommodate objections. It can also leave a collective commitment dependent on a single capital.
A national veto can force governments to negotiate and accommodate objections.
For Europe, the question is how much protection individual governments need, and what happens when that protection limits the security, resources or choices of everyone else.
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Europe’s old pilgrimage routes preserve more than religious heritage. They offer another relationship with time. Through walking, hospitality and unexpected encounters, they reveal what modern societies risk losing when every journey — and even rest — must deliver measurable results.
Years after leaving telecom journalism, Siu Lie Tan reappears in Tuscany—working across circular innovation, European regulation and natural cosmetics. In this Coffee Talk, she reflects on curiosity, changing direction and learning that not everything needs to follow the plan.
Michiel Scheffer wants Europe to do more than finance scientific discovery. His vision for the European Innovation Council connects research, patient capital, industrial demand and strategic procurement—turning breakthrough technologies into companies, production capacity and European power.
Under Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission has moved beyond regulation towards crisis management, industrial strategy and geopolitical coordination. Her vision is of a Europe capable of acting—but its growing executive ambition raises questions about power and accountability.