Since it was founded in 2009, Beta-i, a leading Portuguese-born, global collaborative innovation consultancy that connects large corporations with startups, has played an increasing role in Portugal’s tech success.
The consultancy that helps companies innovate by managing projects, fostering startup ecosystems, and accelerating growth, now has a global presence with offices in Lisbon, Boston, Brussels, and São Paulo.
Diogo Teixeira says that over the past 12 months artificial intelligence has gone from being an idea to a reality whereby most corporations are investing and getting their first results. However, for the majority of them those results are not particularly good.
“I think that Web Summit 2025 was a forum where everybody in the corporate world came together to see what others are doing in AI, what’s working and what isn’t, and the different value propositions or projects are out there and what they can add to the discussion,” said Diogo Teixeira.
The Web Summit, he said, revealed that there are a lot more Chinese experts on AI than US ones, at least at the summit, while the majority of companies have released that they are not seeing value yet from their AI investments.
“The other takeaway is that the Europeans are stuck in the middle of a geopolitical clash between China and the US with this feeling that we are losing the battle to keep up with or lead in AI.
“In the corporate world AI uptake is pretty much an innovation challenge and companies need to build, ideate and see how and where AI can fit into their organisations before building a business case,” the innovation leader explained.
And that’s essentially what Beta-i can help companies do: build a business case, trial a proof of concept, onboard the right professionals, suggest management changes if necessary, and only then suggest that a startup or small company scales up.
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