40 cents of every euro spent by AI start-ups in Europe goes to regulatory compliance rather than to technology.

Omissions

• The source figure is hedged: businesses 'could spend AS MUCH AS 40 cents to every euro' — an upper bound of what firms say they might spend, not an observed average of what is actually spent.
• The AWS statement refers to 'European businesses' (and, in AWS's own material, to an estimated 40% of their IT spend), not specifically to 'AI start-ups in Europe'; the MEP narrows and sharpens the scope.
• The 40% is based on what businesses told AWS (self-reported, non-transparent methodology and sample); no official statistical authority (Eurostat, ECB, national statistics offices) publishes such a compliance-spend share, and no survey methodology or sample size has been published.
• The figure is corporate advocacy from a cloud provider with a commercial interest in lighter AI regulation, presented in the speech as an established fact.
• The claim was made one day after the Reuters report (2026-10-21) that first carried the quote, so the MEP could have known it, but it was not attributed in the speech.

Sources

• PrimaryAmazon Web Services — 'Building trust in AI: The AWS approach to the EU AI Act'"European businesses also highlighted that an estimated 40% of their IT spend goes towards compliance-related costs"
• SecondaryReuters — 'Europe risks startup exodus as regulation, funding and skill gaps hamper AI adoption, AWS EMEA head says'"European businesses are telling us that they could spend as much as 40 cents to every euro on regulatory compliance instead of technology." (quote attributed to the AWS EMEA head)
• SecondaryPYMNTS — 'AWS Executive Says 40% of European Startups Consider Leaving Region to Scale'Reports that an Amazon Web Services executive said nearly 4 in 10 European startups have told the company they would consider leaving the region, in the same set of AWS statements about regulatory burden on European firms