Europe’s CEOs are prepared to show its vitality problem right into a aggressive edge

Our venue was the historic Barber-Surgeons’ Hall in London, an apt place to have a conversation about Europe’s future. The U.K. remains deeply connected to European business and finance, while also maintaining close links to the U.S. and the wider global economy. At a moment of extraordinary volatility—from war in the Gulf and uncertainty in U.S. politics to intensifying competition from China—London offers a useful vantage point for thinking about how Europe should adapt.

The leaders who filled the room are grappling with a perfect storm of mounting energy pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, slowing productivity, and how to navigate the promise—and darker possibilities—of AI. Those themes were evident during the day’s discussions, which were private to allow for candid debate. But a few takeaways emerged:

Europe has scale; will it equal growth? Earlier in the day, we released the brand new Fortune 500 Europe list, which provides a useful snapshot of Europe’s corporate heft. The 500 companies generated $15.5 trillion in revenue this year, up 4% from last year, and more than $1 trillion in profits. That combined revenue is equivalent to half of Europe’s GDP. Finance, energy, and automakers together account for over half of all revenues and profits on the list. 

The ranking is a reminder that Europe has enormous companies, deep pools of talent, significant financial resources, and areas of genuine industrial strength. But at the Forum, business leaders from across the region called for a policy, energy, infrastructure, and investment environment that allows those strengths to translate into the next phase of growth.

Europe’s green advantage. The sustainability conversation was notably clear-eyed. CEOs weren’t debating whether decarbonization matters; the hard part is doing it while energy costs squeeze competitiveness. The opportunity, several leaders argued, is to turn the green transition into an advantage. Some companies are already finding ways to do that: German engineering company GEA Group, for example, is baking energy efficiency into its business model, as CEO Stefan Klebert told me ahead of the Forum. For instance, it redesigned the machinery for a large dairy producer, cutting the energy consumption of its milk powder production by more than 50%.

AI: less panic, more pragmatism. It is, of course, an interesting week in which to gather business leaders and executives from AI labs in a room to debate where these technologies are heading. There was certainly concern about the risks of increasingly autonomous systems, who is responsible when AI acts without human sign-off, and what happens to jobs. But the dominant mood was, again, very practical: how do we actually use these tools, what is the return, and how should companies govern them? There was a strong appetite for regulation—but regulation that enables innovation rather than prevents it.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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S&P 500 futures are up 0.82% this morning. The last session closed down 0.45%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.66% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.57% in early trading. The Nikkei 225 was up 0.33%. South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.04%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.45%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.53%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.28%. Bitcoin is at $76k.

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CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.