Europe’s CEOs are ready to turn its energy challenge into a competitive edge

In today’s CEO Daily: A dispatch from Fortune’ s CEO Forum in London The big leadership story: Marc Benioff urges AI firms to take responsibility for their products.

The markets: U.S. futures are up after the Fed rate hike caused a selloff.

Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune .

Good morning.

Kirsty McGregor, Editorial Director for Europe, writing from London this morning.

How can Europe unlock its next phase of growth? That was the question running through nearly all the conversations at the Fortune CEO Forum in London yesterday, where we brought together execs from companies including Mastercard , Ferrari, BlackRock , Shell , EDF, Google, OpenAI, Honeywell , Anthropic, and Microsoft to explore the forces reshaping Europe’s economy.

Our venue was the historic Barber-Surgeons’ Hall in London, an apt place to have a conversation about Europe’s future.

The U.K. remains deeply connected to European business and finance, while also maintaining close links to the U.S. and the wider global economy.

At a moment of extraordinary volatility—from war in the Gulf and uncertainty in U.S. politics to intensifying competition from China—London offers a useful vantage point for thinking about how Europe should adapt.

The leaders who filled the room are grappling with a perfect storm of mounting energy pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, slowing productivity, and how to navigate the promise—and darker possibilities—of AI.

Those themes were evident during the day’s discussions, which were private to allow for candid debate.

But a few takeaways emerged: Europe has scale; will it equal growth? Earlier in the day, we released the brand new Fortune 500 Europe list , which provides a useful snapshot of Europe’s corporate heft.

The 500 companies generated $15.5 trillion in revenue this year, up 4% from last year, and more than $1 trillion in profits.

That combined revenue is equivalent to half of Europe’s GDP.