On 25 June 2026, the EU-ALMPO project was presented during the open scientific seminar of the Department of Human Capital at the Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdańsk University of Technology, a partner of the EU-ALMPO consortium.
The seminar was organised and hosted by Łukasz Sienkiewicz, PhD, Associate Professor at the Department of Human Capital, Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdańsk University of Technology, as part of the Department’s open seminar series, addressed to academic staff, researchers and participants interested in current scientific, technological and policy-related topics.
The presentation was delivered by Prof. Giannis Tzimas from the University of the Peloponnese, Project Coordinator of EU-ALMPO, under the title “Beyond Automation: Co-pilot AI for Active Labour Market Policies.”
The seminar focused on a central question for the future of Artificial Intelligence in public policy: how should AI be designed when full automation is neither desirable nor responsible? This question is particularly relevant in high-stakes public-sector domains, such as employment services, social protection, education and healthcare, where decisions may directly affect people’s access to support and opportunities.
Using EU-ALMPO as the main example, Prof. Tzimas presented the concept of co-pilot AI as a responsible alternative to full automation. The key message was that AI should support public institutions and practitioners, not replace them. In the context of Active Labour Market Policies, this means that AI can help policymakers and employment services access evidence, analyse labour-market trends, design better interventions and support more personalised pathways for beneficiaries, while responsibility and final judgement remain with human professionals.
The presentation also highlighted why full automation is problematic in labour-market policy. Active Labour Market Policies are designed and implemented within complex institutional ecosystems involving ministries, public employment services, training providers, employers, social services and other stakeholders. Data is often fragmented, interoperability is limited, and many decisions require professional judgement, contextual understanding and direct human engagement.
Within this context, EU-ALMPO is developing an AI-supported platform for the institutions that design and implement Active Labour Market Policies across Europe. A central part of the seminar was dedicated to the ALMP Design Wizard, one of the key tools being developed within the project. The Wizard is designed to support users through a structured policy-design workflow, helping them design new interventions, explore existing evidence, or review and improve current programmes.
Importantly, the Wizard is not designed as a one-click policy generator. Instead, it supports a step-by-step process in which AI drafts, suggests, explains and challenges assumptions, while the human user reviews, adjusts and decides. This reflects one of the core principles of EU-ALMPO: AI should act as a co-pilot, not as a decision-maker.
The seminar also addressed responsible AI design, including human review and override, transparency, protection of practitioner discretion, bias auditability, explainability, data protection and localised analysis. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session and open discussion on automation, human responsibility, multilingual data, sustainability, research opportunities and future collaboration.
The seminar confirmed the relevance of EU-ALMPO to current debates on responsible AI, labour-market policy and public-sector innovation. It also underlined the need for AI tools that strengthen public institutions by making evidence more accessible, policy design more structured and human judgement more visible.