European Founders Trust AI Providers More Than Their Governments

Thirty-seven percent of European startup founders strongly trust AI providers to support their growth. Only 27% say the same about their national governments. That gap, drawn from a survey of 700 founders across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Nordics, commissioned by Finnish payments firm Enfuce and conducted by Sapio, frames a Europe where the organizations founders rely on least are often the ones they cannot avoid.

What did the survey actually find?

The headline numbers cut against type. AI providers and sales-and-distribution platforms each earned strong trust from 37% of respondents; investors scored 35%. Governments trailed at 27% — yet governments were also named the most influential force over business growth, with 38% of all founders and 47% of UK founders saying their government holds high power over whether their company expands.

That mismatch is the survey's sharpest finding. Policymakers set taxes, labour rules, funding conditions and market access. Founders live inside those rules with little leverage to change them. As the report puts it, the results measure reported perceptions, not provider performance or policy quality, and the pooled six-country sample may conceal national and sectoral differences.

Is founders' AI confidence backed by results?

Largely, if self-reported numbers count. Sixty-nine percent of founders use AI in their business, including 19% who run it through business-critical decisions or processes. Among AI users, 56% reported higher productivity and 52% reported improved revenue or profit margins. Across the full sample, 58% agreed AI is a greater opportunity than a threat.

The picture suggests a shift from experimentation toward deployment. Productivity gains show up first in drafting, coding, summarising and customer support. The stakes rise when AI touches payments, credit decisions or hiring. Enfuce CEO Denise Johansson points to AI moving from helping founders work toward making decisions — including payments on their behalf. That shift raises hard questions: who authorises an action, how it can be challenged, and who bears responsibility when an automated process goes wrong.

Trust in AI, in other words, may be conditional. Founders can value the tools while demanding control over sensitive data, permissions and decision pathways. The report found relationships matter more to growth than technology for 63% of respondents — a reminder that tools operate inside networks of customers, suppliers and advisers.

Why do founders depend on organizations they distrust?

Because they often have no choice. Fifty-six percent of founders said they depend on at least one type of organization they have limited trust in. Within that group, 30% said they rely on it simply because no suitable alternative exists. Others cited capabilities unavailable elsewhere, or benefits that outweigh their concerns.

Sales and distribution platforms ranked highest for strong dependence, followed by investors and traditional retail banks. These are gateways to customers, capital and payments; switching can mean lost data, disrupted revenue or expensive migration. The survey notes this is not unique to tech firms — concentrated infrastructure gives a supplier leverage even when customers doubt its terms.

Founders named value for money and keeping promises as the leading drivers of trust, followed by clarity about terms, charges and decisions. Practical answers, not ideological ones. The survey suggests regulators and market participants could build trust by making terms easier to compare and switching less disruptive, though it prescribes no specific policy.

How fragile is Europe's appeal to its own founders?

Operating costs topped the list of recent growth barriers at 32%, ahead of economic and policy uncertainty at 29%. Forty-two percent said lower operating costs would help them grow — rising to 50% in the UK. Only 41% expressed confidence that Europe is a good place to build and scale a business, and 39% have considered relocating, incorporating or raising capital outside Europe.

Consideration is not departure. But it signals a competitive problem: if founders believe prospects are better elsewhere, Europe risks losing future employment, investment and intellectual property even if those founders stay commercially connected to European markets. As AI moves from assisting founders to acting for them, the survey's central lesson holds — transparency, accountability and the practical ability to switch providers will decide whether the current confidence in AI providers survives contact with business-critical decisions.