Eastern Europe Needs More Technological Courage
Companies in Eastern Europe should adopt a bolder approach to integrating technology in order to boost employee productivity, says Alexandru Mihailciuc, Vice President of UiPath. He warns that the competitive advantage based on cheaper labor is steadily disappearing.
“Europe is a much more risk-averse market. Especially Eastern Europe, which has a lot to catch up on in terms of regulatory systems that have been quite adverse. Also, labor used to be quite cheap here. Now it’s not anymore, so the competitive advantage is starting to fade. Therefore, we need to move toward artificial intelligence systems,” said A. Mihailciuc during the Impact 2025 conference held recently in Bucharest.
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He pointed out that, according to a European study, Romanians and Poles work the most hours per week. In this context, he believes entrepreneurs and managers must become more courageous and start testing new technologies.
“I think that if we want to get out of this situation, business owners, CEOs, and others like them, as I said, need to be bolder and willing to try technology. Under controlled risk conditions, yes, sometimes in isolated environments, but they must try it. There are amazing technologies that can increase productivity,” he added.
From Programming to Prompt Engineering
Alexandru Mihailciuc emphasized that automation is changing labor market demands. Programmers will no longer be as sought after as they once were, while new professions — such as prompt engineers — will emerge as some of the most valuable roles.
“When talking about the skill set of the future, obviously, we must understand how to work with AI. And one of the things we’re doing, also through our academic alliances, is to provide and democratize all these skill sets. For example, we are launching prompt engineering courses, which we believe will become some of the best-paid jobs in the future. Prompt engineering. Because until now, programming has been very valued. One could even say that programming is actually simpler than prompt engineering. Because programming has clear syntax, a clear language. Natural language can be very diverse. And to achieve the same predictable result, it requires very fine-tuning of prompts. One of the most important skills I believe we should learn is prompt engineering,” explained the UiPath Vice President.
A prompt engineer acts as a translator between humans and artificial intelligence, ensuring clear and effective communication. This specialist filters user requests sent to large language models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to make sure AI delivers the most accurate and relevant answers possible.
Barriers to Innovation
Although the regional and European markets are on an upward trend, A. Mihailciuc believes there are still two major obstacles holding back innovation: a defensive mindset and restrictive regulations.
“It’s about the slightly defensive mentality of maintaining the status quo. And I also believe it’s about regulation. For example, allowing one of the most important things — broader use of the cloud. We should be a bit more relaxed when it comes to cloud usage, instead of restricting it and keeping everything local,” he concluded.
UiPath, Romania’s first automation start-up listed on Wall Street, reported $362 million in revenue for the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 (ending July 31, 2025) — a 14% increase compared to the same period last year, exceeding analysts’ expectations.
The company was founded in 2015 in Bucharest by Daniel Dines, later relocating its headquarters to New York, solidifying its status as a global leader in robotic process automation.
Photo: Romania Insider
