Lisbon, Oct. 13, 2025 (Lusa) - The head of the Portuguese Digital Economy Association, Alexandre Nilo Fonseca said on Monday that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing the "greatest technological and productive transformation in recent decades," stressing that Portugal "is not lagging behind" in adopting these tools.
"Perhaps I have never seen anything so powerful and so quick to adopt and deliver results," said the head of the Portuguese Digital Economy Association (ACEPI), a business association founded in 2000, which brings together the most relevant entities linked to the Digital Economy revolution in Portugal, in statements to Lusa.
According to him, "the health sector will be one of those most impacted" by the possibility of diagnoses "much faster and more accurate than the human eye can achieve" and by the creation of "cures and vaccines for devastating diseases".
Portugal, he added, "is not lagging behind the European average" in the use of AI and other digital indicators.
The country "was a pioneer" in the digitisation of the State, with "automatic VAT reporting since 2013" and mandatory electronic public procurement since 2009, he explained.
"Portugal's technological infrastructure is excellent, with fibre optics and high-speed data centres," added the ACEPI president, pointing out that "80% of Portuguese people use the internet every day" and "90% are already connected".
However, he warned of the importance of "training people", stressing that "automating something that was poorly done from the outset only makes a bad thing faster".
The topic will be discussed at the Portugal Digital Summit 2025, organised by ACEPI and Coinext (Bitcoin broker), on 22 and 23 October in Lisbon, which he described as "the largest digital transformation event in Portugal", with "more than 150 speakers and ten themed stages".
The meeting will be attended by the deputy minister and Minister for State Reform, Gonçalo Matias, and will feature the presentation of the new "Study of the Digital Economy in Portugal," prepared in partnership with Porto Business School.
Among the areas highlighted are artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, mobility, sustainability and innovation.
"We want to inspire companies and people to lead with technology, but also with human purpose," he said, stressing that "Portugal can and should be the European digital hub, connecting Europe to the Portuguese-speaking world, Africa and Latin America."
On the risks of AI, he argued that "companies should use closed-loop AI systems to ensure security," noting that "many employees carry sensitive data without knowing if it is protected."
Even so, he considered that "AI is relatively well regulated in Europe" and that the challenge now is to "optimise company information so that generative engines recognise it", giving rise to a new discipline, "Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)".
"We are facing a revolution comparable to that of the personal computer or the internet [...] the difference is that this one is happening much faster," he concluded.
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