The European Commission has appointed Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of Siemens’ supervisory board, as its special envoy for industrial artificial intelligence. He will advise Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and tech sovereignty chief Henna Virkkunen on how to accelerate AI adoption across European industry.
The backlash was immediate. Snabe’s appointment lands weeks after Siemens was among the companies that lobbied hardest for the rollback of the EU’s AI Act, the world’s most ambitious AI regulatory framework. Critics say the appointment amounts to handing advisory power over AI policy to the same industry that successfully weakened it.
Who is Jim Hagemann Snabe
Snabe, 60, is a Danish executive who co-led SAP as co-CEO from 2010 to 2014 before moving to the supervisory board. He became chairman of Siemens’ supervisory board in 2018. Beyond those roles, he has served on the advisory board of Google Cloud, on the board of US enterprise AI firm C3.ai, and as a board of trustees member at the World Economic Forum.
The Commission says it conducted a thorough conflict-of-interest assessment before the appointment. For the duration of his mandate, which runs until 31 March 2027, Snabe will suspend his Google Cloud and C3.ai memberships. The role is unpaid.
