The companies, along with several researchers and industry bodies, signed an open letter stating that Europe was already becoming less competitive and risked falling even further behind in the AI era.
The signatories called for “harmonised, consistent, swift and clear decisions” from data privacy regulators to “allow European data to be used in AI training for the benefit of Europeans.”
The letter challenges recent decisions under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018.
Meta, the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, recently halted plans to collect data from European users to train its artificial intelligence models following pressure from privacy regulators.
“In recent times, regulatory decision-making has become fragmented and unpredictable, while interventions by European Data Protection Authorities have created enormous uncertainty about what types of data can be used to train AI models,” the letter says.
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A European Commission spokesperson said at the time that all EU companies were expected to comply with data privacy rules. Meta has faced record fines for violating user privacy, including a single fine of more than €1 billion under the GDPR.
In addition to data privacy rules, Europe became the first regional bloc to draft major legislation aimed at stopping abuses of the technology: its AI Law came into force earlier this year.
Meta and other tech giants have increasingly delayed launching products for the European market, saying they are seeking legal clarity.
Meta delayed the EU-wide launch of its Twitter alternative, Threads, by several months last year.
Google has also delayed the launch of artificial intelligence tools in the EU.
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