Thiel said he sees much less urgency about AI among companies in Europe than in the US, and that in Europe the instinct is still to wait.

Judge the quote's substance as of 2026-09-25: European companies (and European decision-makers more broadly) show markedly less urgency about adopting and investing in AI than US counterparts, tending to wait. (The proposition's phrase 'than in the US, where the instinct is still to wait' is a garbling; the quote puts the waiting instinct in Europe.) True: surveys, investment data or credible analyses from around 2025–2026 consistently show clearly lower AI investment, adoption speed or strategic priority in Europe than in the US (e.g. corporate AI capex, enterprise adoption rates, AI venture funding, executive surveys), so 'much less urgency' is fair. Mostly true: the gap is clear on most measures but smaller than 'much less' suggests, or adoption rates are similar while investment lags heavily. Mixed: the evidence is split, with Europe lagging on some key measures and matching the US on others. Mostly false: European firms lag only slightly or in narrow segments, and the claim overstates this as a general wait-and-see attitude. False: comparable data show European companies adopting and prioritising AI as fast as or faster than US companies.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament European Central Bank (speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB) · 28 September 2026

   “AI-related investment is rising in Europe, and more is in the pipeline for firms, but still lags behind the United States.”

2. E2 Measuring AI Adoption among Firms: How You Ask Matters St. Louis Fed (On the Economy blog) · 1 June 2026

   “Worker-based surveys find higher rates of AI adoption in the U.S. than in Europe. Yet firm-level surveys suggest a higher adoption rate in Europe.”

3. E3 Measuring AI Adoption among Firms: How You Ask Matters St. Louis Fed (On the Economy blog) · 1 June 2026

   “In the first quarter of 2025, the BTOS found that about 7% of U.S. firms used AI for producing goods or services. That number is higher than the EU average for production-focused AI (about 4%), and only Austria and Sweden have higher adoption rates.”

4. E4 The use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the European Union - Key results, 2026 edition Eurostat (European Commission statistical office) · 6 May 2026

   “The 20.0% figure is an increase of 11.9 pp compared to 2023 and 6.5 pp compared to 2024. This means that AI adoption in the EU is rising rapidly: 1 in 5 EU enterprises used at least one AI technology in 2025, compared to less than 1 in 10 a few years ago.”

The ECB president says AI-related investment in Europe is rising but still lags behind the United States (E1). This supports a gap on investment, but the quote gives no size for it. The St. Louis Fed reports that surveys of workers find higher AI adoption in the US, while surveys of firms suggest higher adoption in Europe (E2). On one production-focused measure, about 7% of US firms used AI in the first quarter of 2025, against an EU average of about 4% (E3). Eurostat shows EU enterprise adoption rising quickly, to 20% in 2025 (E4). So Europe lags on investment but matches or leads on some adoption measures, which fits the mixed criterion better than "much less urgency".