SASHA RUBEL
THE AI INTERVIEW
Sasha Rubel has spent her career at the point where technology meets governance. As Head of AI Policy for EMEA at Amazon Web Services( AWS) – the cloud computing arm of retail giant Amazon – she advises governments on workable regulatory frameworks, supports organisations in building responsible AI strategies and works directly with the businesses building AI-powered solutions. It is, Sasha says, a role defined by urgency.
“ Innovation cycles are compressing and AI development is outpacing regulatory frameworks,” she explains.
Sasha’ s mission now is to ensure that responsibility and safety are built into AI systems from the ground up – not bolted on afterwards – while keeping Europe competitive in a complex global landscape.
Moving toward advanced AI use Sasha leads two flagship initiatives at AWS. The first is the AWS Pioneers Project, which champions European AI innovators advancing competitiveness through purpose-driven innovation. The second is an annual report, Unlocking Europe’ s AI Potential, which surveys 17,000 businesses and 17,000 citizens across 17 European countries on how they are navigating the AI era.
The findings show Europe has genuine strengths: world-class research institutions, a technology sector worth almost US $ 4tn and almost 40,000 funded technology companies. AI adoption among European businesses
SASHA RUBEL
TITLE: HEAD OF AI POLICY, EMEA COMPANY: AWS INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY
As Head of AI Policy for EMEA at AWS, Sasha bridges the gap between policymakers and innovators. Her mission is to ensure that AI responsibility and safety go hand in hand with innovation.
has risen sharply, from 33 % two years ago to 54 % today – equivalent to 4.4 million businesses adopting AI for the first time over the past year, or roughly one every seven seconds.
However, headline adoption figures only tell part of the story. The more telling metric is the proportion of businesses moving into advanced use – in other words, embedding AI into core processes, building custom solutions and deploying agentic AI systems capable of planning and executing complex workflows without direct human instruction. That figure has risen by just one percentage point over the past year to 22 %.
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April 2026