Germany's government opens its Digital Summit in Berlin today under the slogan "Shaping AI: safe, sovereign, competitive," and Chancellor Friedrich Merz is due to speak this afternoon. The summit lands in the middle of a coalition argument over whether to tax revenue made with AI. Education and family minister Karin Prien told Stern magazine that if value is created mainly through AI, it has to be taxed.

Digital minister Karsten Wildberger floated such a levy first, to pay for the shift in work, then said growth has to come first. Economy minister Katherina Reiche said to introduce AI before taxing it. At Friday's government press conference, the finance ministry said Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil is open in principle, but the finance, digital and labour ministries are first studying what AI does to jobs, social insurance and the tax system. If your plan counts on AI savings, ask how they look with part of them taxed. (Federal Government; tagesschau; Digital Summit)

Publishers may soon have a simpler way to say no. On Friday, Google said it will support a shared AI-training opt-out in robots.txt, the file websites use to instruct crawlers, based on work in an Internet Engineering Task Force group. A site would set one rule that tells every participating AI provider not to train on its pages, without blocking search.

Microsoft and OpenAI say they will honor it too, and Anthropic has started building support. Google aims to support it in 2027. The proposal is still an individual draft, not an approved standard. If your company publishes content, decide your training policy now, because one line could soon apply to every major lab at once. (Google; Search Engine Journal)

Machines are also becoming a trade issue. President Trump signed a proclamation last Wednesday finding that imports of robotics, industrial machinery and their parts threaten US national security, because the country uses more of them than it makes. It tells the Commerce Secretary and the US Trade Representative to negotiate agreements with other countries.

There are no tariffs yet. The order asks for a progress report on the talks within 180 days, and the law lets the President take other steps, duties included, if no deal is reached by then. If you are planning factory automation, price the imported robots and machinery under more than one tariff case. (White House proclamation; fact sheet)

Some governments are putting the money into skills instead. On Saturday, education and technology ministers of the East African Community adopted a regional AI strategy, along with digital transformation and biotechnology strategies, at a meeting in Kampala, Uganda.

They approved a foundational AI module meant for undergraduates in every discipline, a regional network of universities working on AI, and AI certification benchmarks in Kiswahili. One official asked that every directive name a responsible institution, a timeline and the resources needed. Firms hiring in the region will see graduates trained to a shared AI baseline. (East African Community)

Already filed, if you want the run-up: The Disclosure (the SEC examining what AI companies tell investors), The Shareholder (Canada taking a stake in an AI company, with conditions) and The Spare (India's markets regulator weighing its own AI model).

Also on the shelf: The Model Card (US health regulators dropping required AI model cards), The Penalty (Japan weighing penalties in its AI law) and The Owner (Korea's bank supervisor saying the bank owns every AI mistake). Read today beside The Shareholder. Ottawa bought a share of AI's upside. Berlin is asking whether to tax it.

Germany has paid for job transitions before. It introduced Kurzarbeitergeld, short-time work pay, on May 25, 1910, to cushion a downturn in potash mining. Employers cut hours instead of jobs, and the state, now through the Federal Employment Agency, makes up part of the lost wages.

In 2009 the government budgeted 5.1 billion euros for it, replacing some lost income for more than 1.4 million workers. An OECD report credited it with saving nearly 500,000 jobs. The state paid, and the skilled crews were still in place when orders came back. (Kurzarbeit)

Put these to management. Which of our AI business cases assume savings from fewer roles, and how do they hold up if some of that gain is taxed or has to fund retraining?

Then the inputs. Have we set a policy on whether outside models may train on our content? Do our automation plans depend on imported robots or machinery that could face new duties?

The Move

Germany's ministers are openly debating a levy on AI revenue, and the finance ministry has started the analysis. Publishers are getting one switch to refuse AI training, and robots now sit on Washington's trade list.

Ask the chief financial officer to rerun our three largest AI business cases with a levy, a retraining cost and a tariff on imported equipment, and bring the results to the next board meeting.

Count the levy before you count the savings.

Seven bullets. One move.