A conversation with Erick Webbe, KickstartAI's new CEO
'The Netherlands must move from talking about AI to doing AI'
By Rutger Huizenga
Erick Webbe loves places where things are made: spaces with bright light where people use their hands, head, and heart to build something new. Perhaps that’s why he immediately felt at home at KickstartAI, the independent foundation aiming to help the Netherlands finally move from AI ambitions to AI applications.
As of January 1 2026, he is the new CEO. And although he’s only 41, he brings a career that seems almost tailor-made for this role: trained as a physicist, starting his career in strategy consulting, growing into a data specialist, and eventually responsible for the AI organization at Bol. On top of that, he has been on the board of KickstartAI for several years on behalf of Ahold Delhaize.
“Curiosity is my engine,” he says. “I always want to understand how things work: why the sky is blue, why a rainbow curves… those were the questions that kept me busy as a kid. It also explains why I played chess while my friends played football. Chess is actually a perfect metaphor for AI: everyone has the same pieces and the same information, but the difference lies in how you use them. It’s exactly the same with AI.”
From Bol to the National AI Challenge
Webbe spent over ten years at Bol, where he saw how AI can truly transform an organization. Experiments remain useful for exploration, he says, but real impact comes from scaling. “At Bol, dozens of AI applications are now running daily: from delivery forecasts and personal recommendations to logistics optimization and fraud prevention. This transformation has significantly increased operational efficiency and improved the customer experience.”
The experience also sparked a broader idea: if it works there, why not across the whole country? “It’s an ambitious goal,” he acknowledges. “We have leading universities and a rich technological tradition – Wifi, Bluetooth, and Python were all developed or advanced with Dutch contribution – and we have strong companies. Yet globally we perform quite poorly when it comes to adoption. That’s because we focus too much on risks and too little on value. While AI, used wisely, can actually help solve major societal challenges: labor shortages, pressure on healthcare, pressure on cities.”
To illustrate this, he likes to use a homey metaphor: “My daughters, seven and nine, are learning to cut vegetables. First with a protective cover, then with a blunt knife. But at some point they also need to learn to handle a sharp knife. You don’t hide knives because they’re dangerous; you teach children how to use them responsibly. With AI, we must do exactly the same.”
KickstartAI: from talking to doing
That pragmatic perspective is exactly what attracts him to KickstartAI. The foundation, created by KLM, NS, Ahold Delhaize and ING, deliberately focuses on applied AI: projects that don’t live in a lab but in real organizations, with real users. That translation is clearly visible in the projects from recent years. Webbe lists a few, visibly enthusiastic:
“With KLM, for example, we plan more precisely how many meals are needed on board, reducing waste. For NS, we show that abandoned luggage at stations can be detected without tracking individual travelers. At Bol, we predict more accurately how many packages will be processed each day, so delivery vans enter cities less often while half-empty. And at ING, we’re building a multilingual chatbot for financial health that helps people with financial questions in clear, understandable language.”
And all of this with only twenty employees. Webbe smiles. “People often underestimate what a small team can achieve when you work smart and have strong partners. ING has about eight million customers in the Netherlands and is part of people’s financial routines every single day. Ahold Delhaize, with Albert Heijn, fills millions of plates every day. NS transports more than a million travelers daily and literally keeps the country moving. And KLM connects the Netherlands with the rest of the world through a network a small organization could never build alone. Through these partners we reach almost everyone in the Netherlands, sometimes multiple times a year.”
From isolated applications to AI-first organizations
Yet he sees this as only the beginning. “What truly fascinates me,” he says, “is what happens if you don’t just bolt on a little AI to a hospital or police station afterward, but redesign the entire organization from the ground up using AI-first principles. Not just a model here and there, but asking: how would this work if you used data and algorithms smartly from day one? That’s a completely different way of working. And it holds enormous potential.”
But thinking that big quickly hits the limits of the system. “You need an environment that enables innovation instead of slowing it down. There’s still a lot to win there,” Webbe says.
That’s why he is looking closely at policy. “We need a national policy that doesn’t delay the use of AI, but accelerates it responsibly. Clear rules, fewer grey areas, and above all more guidance for organizations that want to innovate but often don’t know exactly what is allowed and what isn’t.”
Then there’s the public conversation, which he believes lags behind reality. “There are already applications today that reduce pressure on healthcare, help SMEs grow, and make infrastructure more efficient. Once people see those examples, a much more realistic picture emerges of what AI can and cannot do.”
That’s why he sees it as his responsibility, and that of KickstartAI, to fuel that conversation more often. “Not with a cheerful marketing story,” he says, “but by honestly explaining what is already possible now, and which choices come with it. That’s really missing in the public debate.”
A model the world will want to copy
Improving the conversation while showing how things can work leads directly to another, even bigger ambition for KickstartAI. “The best outcome would be if other countries eventually say: whatever the Netherlands is doing with KickstartAI, we want that too,” he says. “Then you haven’t just delivered projects – you’ve built a model that works: scalable, reliable, socially responsible.”
He smiles. “Maybe that’s the essence: showing that progress doesn’t start with big words, but with tangible actions. And that a small country, if it wants to, can set a big example. I’m incredibly excited to contribute to that.”
