The council will look at how artificial intellegence can be applied across all sectors where there is potential, the government's communications office announced.

Its role is to provide advice, bring expertise and connections to the table from both Estonia and abroad, offer new perspectives and help inspire the next steps, said Kirke Maar, program lead for Eesti.ai.

The advisory council will be chaired by Markus Villig, founder of Bolt. Other members include IT visionary Linnar Viik and tech entrepreneurs Sten Tamkivi (Skaala), Kaspar Korjus (Pactum) and Taavi Madiberk (Skeleton).

The line-up was criticized by the Equality Commission Christian Veske and others for not including any women.

Last week, the Government Office said three new experts – Anima Anandkumar, Risto Uuk and Sirli Männiksaar – will join.

Anandkumar is an internationally recognised AI scientist, professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and former Director of Machine Learning Research at NVIDIA.

Uuk is the Head of EU AI Policy and Research and is a researcher at the Future of Life Institute (FLI) in Brussels.

Männiksaar is the Chairwoman of the Management Board of Ericsson Estonia and an industrial and business leader with extensive international experience. 

The first meeting of the Eesti.ai council will take place in April, where the more detailed focus areas and work plan of the programme for the coming period are expected to be approved.

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