Everything we learned about AI from the MIT conference in Greece

EmTech Europe 2025, the leading conference of MIT Technology Review, was held in cooperation with Kathimerini last week in Athens, hosting prominent guests with a global perspective who shape developments in the sectors they represent.

We gathered the most important information we obtained during the panel discussions at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center about what is to come in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and innovative technologies:

“If you think your life has already changed because of AI, wait a little longer,” said Artemis Seaford, Head of AI Safety at ElevenLabs. “The changes that are coming will be enormous,” she continued, adding that “we now face a new set of challenges, the main one being who controls artificial intelligence and in which direction it is directed.”

Other speakers focused on the partnership between health and Artificial Intelligence, saying it opens new paths. “We’ve already seen some really exciting results, helping patients who otherwise wouldn’t get the care they need,” said Eirini Schlosser, CEO and founder of Dyania Health, referring to the tools her company has been developing for a decade.

Maja Pantic, special AI adviser to Neom, dean of computing at the future Neom University, and professor of AI at Imperial College London, drew our attention to the potential dangers of deepfakes and highlighted the need for a regulatory framework. “It only takes 30 minutes of video to create a realistic deepfake,” she told the conference.

Greece’s Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiou, discussed the government’s current technological initiatives, noting that in order to create a climate of trust among citizens, the government must change first, providing digital solutions that improve everyone’s daily lives.

Adrianos Botsios, founder of Dynamic Innovation and a high school student, created Niki, a robot that incorporates AI and robotic thinking, which he even brought on stage to take questions from the audience.

George Varvarelis, Global Sense and Act Engineering director and head of CNH Greece (ex-Augmenta), expressed his optimism for the future of Greek startups, noting that although Greeks constitute only 0.2% of the world’s population, it has 3% of the top engineering talent.

In banking, the National Bank of Greece’s assistant general manager of innovation and digital partnerships, George Marinos, said the lender is in the process of gradually integrating AI into its services, while Harry Margaritis, Piraeus Bank’s group chief operating officer, pointed out that the company is already reaping tangible benefits from this technology.

At the same time, Ioannis Emiris, President of the Board of Directors and Director General of the Athens Research Center, said Greece has a broad field of research, but without focusing on a specific sector, and urged the country’s researchers to focus on a specific field of development to strengthen the domestic deep tech ecosystem.

Demba Va, Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering at Harvard University, noted the importance of the balanced integration of artificial intelligence into learning and research, saying he is not in favor of creating a system that punishes the use of AI in education.

The impact of AI and robotics on maritime transportation was highlighted by Michael Triantafyllou, Professor of Marine Science and Technology at MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, who said “there is no doubt that shipping will become autonomous thanks to AI.”

Danilo McGarry, Chief AI and Transformation Officer at Ective, predicted the sweeping impact of AI on our daily lives, sharing with the audience the ways in which AI will cause seismic changes not only in the way we work, but also in the way we live. 

Petros Koumoutsakos, professor of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard, predicted that while Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will not be able to fully understand emotional states, it will certainly outperform us in practical tasks.

Another major topic was Greece’s potential to play an important role in Europe’s evolutionary path regarding new technologies. Vassilis Koutsoumpas, Digital Policy and AI Adviser to the Prime Minister, said, that at a national level, the country can provide examples of use that will serve as models for other countries.

For Gal Chechik, senior director of AI research at US multinational Nvidia and a professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, AI’s progress is “unstoppable,” but reasoning problems require much more computing power.

According to MIT Technology Review, smaller AI models, reducing methane emissions from cows, robotaxis, and a drug that is 100% effective in preventing HIV are just some of the 10 technologies that are expected to significantly impact our lives in the coming years.

The parallel development of sustainability innovations along with AI solutions was discussed  by Apheros CEO Julia Carpenter, who told the conference that “cooling is critical for data centers, which already consume 1% of the world’s energy for cooling alone,” and that “switching to liquid cooling can save up to 85% of energy costs, which can amount to $2 million annually.”

Junaid Bajwa, senior partner at Flagship Pioneering, noted the role of AI in speeding up processes and reducing bureaucracy, citing the example of radiology, where the use of AI can reduce image analysis time from three hours to just 13 minutes.

Dimitris Primpas, general manager at IBM Greece & Cyprus, identified three major challenges that accompany the adoption of AI: cost, accuracy and specialization, adding that retraining the workforce will also be crucial.

Luc Julia, Chief Scientific Officer of Renault Group France and co-creator of Apple’s Siri, touched extensively on the ethical issues arising from the rapid advancements in AI but advised that we should approach regulatory frameworks with caution. “If we overregulate technology, we risk banning useful and innovative applications.”

Finally, Antonis Armoundas, Principal Investigator at the Division of Cardiology at Mass General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that in the US, “we can even predict a person’s life expectancy based on their zip code,” noting that such approaches can be used for personalized diagnosis and treatment of patients.