From left: Andreas Athanassopoulos, CEO of Olympia Group, John Gikopoulos, CINO and head of Applied Intelligence at Qualco Group, Alexandros Manos, CEO at Netcompany-Intrasoft, and Dimitris Primpas, general manager of IBM Greece & Cyprus. [Nikolas Kominis]
The ways to create secure and ethical solutions using Artificial Intelligence was discussed in detail at the EmTech Europe 2025 conference on Thursday, the second and last day of the event taking place at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.
On a panel moderated by journalist Thelma Chatziathanasiou, Andreas Athanassopoulos, CEO of Olympia Group, said that after the acquisition of Entersoft and the investment in Softone, the group is actively participating in the global trend of digital transformation driven by AI. “Artificial intelligence is independent of industries,” he said, adding that the company is trying to integrate AI applications into its products, helping small and medium-sized enterprises to enhance their productivity.
For his part, John Gikopoulos, chief innovation officer and head of Applied Intelligence at Qualco Group, said that agentic (proactive) AI solutions will soon be widely available, noting that the private sector is leading the way in the adoption of AI by creating practical tools with immediate commercial value. He also noted the importance of regulation, such as the EU AI Act, for secure data management.
Alexandros Manos, CEO at Netcompany-Intrasoft, focused on the issue of ethical management of AI systems, saying that every organization must develop a framework that ensures transparency, accountability and fairness. In particular, he referred to the complexity of the digital transformation of Greece’s Single Social Security Entity (EFKA), where the Netcompany-Intrasoft team utilized AI to transform, cleanse and validate huge volumes of data with high complexity and diversity. “The identification level improved from 50-60% to over 70%, while productivity also increased significantly,” he said.
Dimitris Primpas, general manager at IBM Greece & Cyprus, said AI models should be adapted to the specific requirements of each company, adding that their most interesting applications are those that can radically change the way businesses operate. Primpas identified three major challenges that accompany the adoption of AI: cost, accuracy and specialization, adding that retraining the workforce will also be crucial.
On Wednesday, panelists discussed stories of Greek startups, sharing their experiences in developing technological solutions and the challenges they faced in their journey. Discussing the nature of entepreneurship, Alex Tsilfidis, engineering manager and Greek site lead at Meta, as well as technology entrepreneur, warned that “if you want to make a lot of money, don’t start a startup,” explaining that creating a successful business requires vision and purpose beyond financial motivation. While funding is a critical element for growth, especially in the hardware sector, it is not the determining factor for success. “Finding capital is important, but it does not determine success by itself,” he told the panel, moderated by Kathimerini journalist Despina Konti.
George Varvarelis, Global Sense and Act Engineering director and head of CNH Greece (ex-Augmenta), referred to the use of computer vision in agriculture, a technology developed by Augmenta to understand agricultural conditions in real time. Through cameras and sensors, the system perceives the state of the crop and communicates with tractors and sprayers, reducing costs and improving efficiency. “Time is priceless and the experience of first presenting our technology to farmers in Volos was revealing,” he said.
Asked about what contributes to the success of a startup, he said the team is the most crucial. “When you don’t have a lot of money, you can’t make many mistakes,” he said, adding that the right team can determine the course of a business. The second key element is the existence of motivation: “The ambition for money is not enough. You need something to push you forward, because the journey of a startup is difficult.” Investment rounds alone are worthless if the startup does not provide real innovation, Varvarelis continued. “Funding is simply the means to create something bigger.” He also said that although Greece constitutes only 0.2% of the world’s population, it has 3% of the top engineering talent, which creates optimism for the future of Greek startups.
