The consumer perspective on the joint EU-US roadmap on artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) products and services, such as virtual assistants and facial recognition tools, are already changing consumer markets and our societies. It is a technology which carries huge expectations of improving and making consumers’ lives more convenient. But the use of AI also comes with great risks and has major implications for consumers’ autonomy and self-determination, their privacy, their capacity to interact with products and services and, ultimately, in their ability to hold businesses responsible if something goes wrong.

Consumer organisations value voluntary cooperation between EU and U.S. regulators on issues that pose common challenges, such as is the case of AI technology. However, we have major concerns over the joint AI roadmap published during the third EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) ministerial meeting. We would like to provide recommendations to ensure that the TTC’s work will be beneficial for consumers.