Luana Lo Piccolo

Luana Lo Piccolo keeps returning to one question in her advisory work: as machines gain the ability to act and decide, how do people stay meaningfully in control? She is a lawyer and international advisor with more than fifteen years in European and international policy, and she has had a hand in the rules themselves, including the EU AI Act and the Digital Services Act.

She did that work through policy advocacy, hearings, and proposed amendments, pushing for obligations on general-purpose AI and foundation models and for fundamental rights protections. She also worked on European initiatives on disinformation and on the first General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. The European Commission selected her as an independent expert, and she has joined expert roundtables at the Élysée Palace under the patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Her career has moved between public institutions and independent advisory work, which gives her an unusual view of policy. She has seen where it gets written and where it lands. She lectures on AI governance and technology law. Her forthcoming Springer Nature chapter, Artificial Confusion or Strategic Clarity? Rethinking AI Governance and Innovation in the Age of Industry 5.0, treats governance as a framework that makes innovation possible. At HeckelAI, where she is a contributing author, she writes about who carries legal responsibility when the technology acts on its own.

Governance as Strategy

Her central conviction is that governance is a strategic capability, and a larger one than legal compliance. It decides who answers for what, and it is how an organization earns the trust an innovation needs to last. Those choices carry more weight as AI systems grow more autonomous. Her 2026 TEDxWarwick talk, In AI We (Dis)Trust: Why Responsibility Must Be Designed In, makes the case that human agency has to be built into these systems from the outset. She has spoken at TEDx and numerous prestigious international conferences, AI summits, and policy forums.

The time to decide who answers for a machine is before it acts.

Background

• Law degree with a specialization in Legal Tech and AI
• More than fifteen years in European and international policy
• Contributed to the EU AI Act and the Digital Services Act through advocacy, hearings, and proposed amendments
• Contributed to European initiatives on disinformation and the first General-Purpose AI Code of Practice
• Selected as an independent expert by the European Commission
• Speaker, TEDxWarwick 2026 and AI Summit Barcelona
• Author of a forthcoming Springer Nature chapter; contributing author, HeckelAI
• Best Responsible AI Leader 2024; Best Legal Strategist in Responsible AI & Regulatory Compliance 2025

At the Summit

Lo Piccolo sits down for a fireside conversation on AI governance and human agency: how leaders can use what AI makes possible and still keep accountability and human judgment in the room. Session title and host to be announced.