What makes a country truly AI-ready in 2026? According to John Durcan, Chief Technologist at IDA Ireland – the country’s Foreign Direct Investment Agency – the answer goes well beyond having the right infrastructure.
It comes down to adaptability, a multicultural workforce, and an openness to change.
Speaking with UC Today, Durcan drew on his experience engaging with some of the world’s largest technology companies to paint a picture of a rapidly evolving enterprise AI landscape – one where regulation, digital sovereignty, and deep R&D specialisation are now as important as tax incentives and talent pipelines.
Skills, Culture & the Case for Ireland
For Durcan, the foundation of AI readiness is cultural as much as technical. “There’s one thing about bringing in a technology, but how do you bring that in?” he said.
“It’s a big change management project – upskilling, reducing the fear, bringing people with you internally.”
He highlighted Ireland’s multicultural workforce as a particular advantage, noting that diverse teams are better placed to identify bias in AI models early in development. “It’s amazing when you’re doing testing how things come up,” he said. “Someone can say, that’s not working for me – and you pick it up earlier.”
Ireland’s tradition of clustering and informal knowledge-sharing between companies – including competitors – also plays a role. “What that tends to do is show that there’s a trust that’s there,” Durcan explained, “and it encourages teams to build research and development.”
Sovereignty & the EU AI Act
On the EU AI Act, Durcan pushed back on the narrative that European regulation is a drag on innovation. For enterprise AI in particular, he argued, it can be a strategic asset. “If you’re an enterprise company and you’re a SaaS product, you really can’t afford to take risks that the AI is going to do something wrong,” he said.
“Regulation helps you to build a very strong product – and if you’re meeting the requirements, that protects you to some degree.”
Being ahead of the curve on the EU AI Act, he suggested, gives companies a clear first-mover advantage when selling into cautious enterprise buyers – particularly those outside the tech sector who know they need to adopt AI but remain wary of the risks.
The growing focus on digital sovereignty is also reshaping how companies build their teams. Where AI groups were once made up almost exclusively of engineers, Durcan said they are now genuinely multidisciplinary.
“Two years ago it was predominantly all engineers,” he said. “Now they’re very much multidisciplinary teams – you’ve got legal people on the team, data experts, ethics.”
That shift, he suggested, reflects the maturity of the enterprise AI conversation, which has moved well past proof-of-concept stage. “No matter what sector I’m talking to now about AI, it’s real world. It’s ROI and what does that look like.”
What Comes Next
On the question of AI’s impact on employment, Durcan was measured – pointing to stabilisation rather than mass replacement, with companies using AI to do more with existing teams and investing heavily in upskilling. One example stood out: a company deploying agentic AI tools as a mentoring mechanism for new graduates, helping them reach full productivity in six months rather than twelve to eighteen.
Looking further ahead, Durcan believes the organisations that thrive will be those that treat AI as a companion rather than a threat, and invest in the cultural change needed to make adoption stick. Power consumption and cost optimisation will be key technical challenges, but the bigger test will be human.
“Don’t be afraid of the technology,” he said. “Work with it to make it work for you.”
