Artificial intelligence continues to attract record levels of investment, but where will the greatest value be created over the next decade? Will it be in foundation models, infrastructure, robotics, or applications? And how should investors navigate a market evolving at extraordinary speed?
Those questions were at the heart of the VivaTech 2026 session Surfing the Wave: What Is the Best Strategy to Invest in AI? Bringing together investors from across Europe's AI ecosystem, the discussion explored where capital is flowing, how Europe can strengthen its position in the global AI race, and whether today's investment strategies will still make sense tomorrow.
While the panelists approached the market from different perspectives, they agreed on one point: AI remains one of the biggest investment opportunities of the decade, but identifying where long-term value will emerge has never been more challenging.
Where Will AI Create the Most Value?
Hala Fadel, who leads growth equity at Eurazeo, the French investment group which recently closed the first 50 million of a billion fund. Yet despite investing at scale, she was careful not to present AI as a market with easy answers. "I wish I had a clear answer," she said.
Instead of predicting the next winner, Fadel focused on where she believes investors should be cautious. Analytics, she argued, is becoming increasingly commoditized, while foundation models themselves may struggle to retain long-term value as competition intensifies.
Instead, she suggested that value is likely to migrate toward applications built on top of those models.
Her comparison was electricity."You pay a high price for all the use cases around electricity." For Fadel, the market remains in a period of rapid change, making patience a strategy in itself. "I would sit on the sidelines today, not necessarily invest, and wait 12 to 18 months to see how things will play out."
Why Some Investors Are Moving Faster
Not everyone on the panel shared that view.
Suzanne Ashman, Managing Partner at the UK's Sovereign AI Fund, argued that waiting can mean missing the companies that ultimately define a generation of technology.
Her fund, launched only months earlier with 00 million, is built around a different philosophy.
"The power law kicks in and it's the winners that matter and you need to be in them almost irrespective of the entry price," she said.
In venture capital, a small number of companies often generate the vast majority of returns. From that perspective, paying what initially appears to be a high valuation may ultimately prove insignificant if the company becomes a market leader.
Ashman pointed to Mistral as an example. Its record-breaking seed round was widely viewed as expensive when announced, yet the company's rapid growth has changed perceptions of what looked possible.
She also argued that Europe has the ability to shape its own AI success stories by supporting sectors where it already has strategic advantages. "I think we can forcibly create conditions to win." said Ashman. Germany's backing of defense technology companies such as Helsing and Stark, she added, helped transform them into global leaders in just five years.
Investing Across the AI Value Chain
For Maya Noel, Managing Director of France Digitale, the conversation should not focus on one part of the AI ecosystem.
Europe, she argued, needs investment across the entire value chain, from semiconductor technology to infrastructure, models, and applications.She pointed to the scale of Europe's AI ecosystem today: around 10,000 AI companies, representing roughly a quarter of all startups while attracting more than half of total venture investment.
Noel also highlighted where she believes value is increasingly concentrated.
Using the same gigawatt-hour of energy, she estimated that a large language model can generate around €35,000 in value compared with roughly €400 through a traditional data center. For investors, it illustrates how AI is changing where economic value is created.
Can Europe Stay Competitive?
The discussion also turned to one of the defining questions for Europe's AI ecosystem: regulation.
Noel described mixed feelings about the EU AI Act. "Sometimes I feel proud of being in Europe," she said, recognizing the continent's ambition to establish global standards for trustworthy AI.
At the same time, she acknowledged the challenge of introducing regulation while the technology is still evolving rapidly.
Fadel was even more direct. "It's way too early to do it. You're scaring off entrepreneurs." She explained that several founders in her own portfolio had already moved their headquarters to the United States, where they believed the regulatory environment offered greater flexibility.
Her view was that Europe should focus first on helping AI companies grow by providing capital and encouraging entrepreneurship. Regulation, she argued, can come later as the broader impacts of the technology become clearer.
The exchange reflected a wider debate taking place across Europe's technology ecosystem: how to encourage innovation while maintaining the safeguards that have become a defining feature of European digital policy.
Looking Beyond Today's AI Boom
Although the panel debated where to invest today, there was broad agreement about the characteristics likely to create long-term value.
Infrastructure, robotics, defense technologies, and businesses built on proprietary data were all identified as areas with stronger competitive advantages because they are more difficult to replicate than software alone.
Fadel illustrated the valuation gap with Cognigy, a conversational AI company in Eurazeo's portfolio that was acquired while its U.S. competitor, Sierra, reached a valuation roughly ten times higher despite generating similar revenue.
Ashman looked further ahead, arguing that Europe also needs stronger public markets if it wants to attract more late-stage investment. "Until Europe really sorts out its exit opportunities, that makes it harder to attract growth stage capital."
Her comment underscored one of the recurring themes throughout VivaTech 2026: Europe's challenge is no longer generating world-class startups. It is creating the conditions that allow those companies to scale, remain in Europe, and become global leaders.
Want to see the full session? Watch the replay of Surfing the Wave: What Is the Best Strategy to Invest in AI? Then join us in Paris for VivaTech 2027, where investors, founders, and technology leaders will come together to explore the next wave of AI innovation.
